The 100-year-old Finland seems to have something of a blind spot. It has built a myth of a monoculture by violently pushing out others; by denying equal rights for Sami and Roma groups and forcing them to blend into the white majority. The myth has been constructed in a systematic fashion and has been deeply embedded in Finnish power structures such as different state institutions and media, not least in arts and culture. It lives inside these systems and has morphed with time into an invisible, white norm.
Racism, as it exists today, also cohabits these spaces. Black and brown Finns are dismissed and threatened in public spaces and silenced in the media landscape. This exclusion is also in the root of structural racism, in which a person is denied entry into certain institutions or jobs based on the colour of their skin or their name, or certain groups of people and nationalities have their constitutional human rights taken away from them. This country has always been, and will continue to be, inhabited by “folks of different inheritance and languages”**. In order to live together and to look brightly towards the future, the myth of Finnish monoculture must be dismantled.
This year, Baltic Circle is hosting a platform for discussions on the rights and self-governance of indigenous peoples; on cultural genocide; on rights to land and water; on climate change and solutions to it; on the revival of ecosystems and of people; and on the possibility of changing a nation. The program of works and encounters curated by Pauliina Feodoroff and titled First Nations invites the audience to engage in a sensitive and sore topic – Finnish colonialism.
The invited festival artists make sharp observations about the world (and possible worlds), with their senses soft. They take us to the birthplaces of the self (Pauliina Feodoroff, Maryan Abdulkarim, S.Nousiainen), to hushed cruelties (Michiel Brouwer and Anders Sunna), and to the fenced border regions of Europe (Rima Najdi). They crush our hearts and fill them with joy (Motus). They prepare a voyage for us to the postmortal state of mind (Post-MJ Era Institute Of Consciousness). They make the present moment visible through pleasure (Last Yearz Interesting Negro / Jamila Johnson-Small) and invite us to surrender ourselves to sensing and feeling. A joint club night hosted by Cirko and Baltic Circle wraps up the evening by inviting festivalgoers to share their experiences and to celebrate together, empowered by live music, performance acts and DJ sets. Also coming up: an epic surprise concert.
Welcome to the festival! With open eyes and open ears – and don’t forget the tissues.
Satu Herrala
Artistic Director
*) These words by Saint Athanasius of Alexandria are painted on a mural, spreading over 50 buildings, that calligraffiti artist eL Seed created in collaboration with a marginalised and persecuted Coptic community at the suburb of Mokattam Hills in Cairo, in the spring 2016
.**) Zachris Topelius, Book of Our Land 1876