Critical Gallery: Teemu Mäki – Do You Remember Chechnya?

6.3.–31.3.2024
Exhibition opening on Wednesday 6.3.2024, at 18.00–20.00
The gallery will be open at noon already.
Exhibition will be open every week Mon-Sun at 12pm to 8pm

Teemu Mäki’s Do You Remember Chechnya? exhibition deals with the fate of Chechnya, a small country within the borders of or next door to a great power. It is worthwhile to remember Chechnya for a number of reasons, for instance because Putin’s regime attempts to achieve the same in Ukraine as it previously did in Chechnya.

Besides the Chechen war and history, the exhibition deals with Finnish history, world politics and the shifting nature of warfare as well as justification of wars. In the text part of the exhibition, Mäki examines the differences and similarities of, for example, Finnish wars (1918, 1939–1940, 1941–1945), Chechen wars (1994–1996, 1999–2009) and the two wars the US waged against Iraq (1990, 2003).

In addition to works of visual art, the exhibition includes texts written by Mäki and also Lahti-based docent Juha Mäkinen (b. 1964) from the National Defence University; artist, researcher and educator Raisa Foster (b. 1976) from Tampere; and Laura Puumala who is finishing her PhD thesis at the University of Turku. Foster, Mäki, Mäkinen and Puumala work together on the research project Just and Unjust Environmental Wars (JUEW), which is a four-year scholarly and artistic project funded by Kone Foundation investigating connections between wars and environmental crises.

Critical Club: WAR & NATURE (seminar) on Saturday 16.3.2024 at 14.00–16.00:

During the exhibition, a seminar will be held at Critical Gallery. The theme of it is war, refugees and the environmental impact of war. The seminar is open and the entry is free.

The speakers: Teemu Mäki & Raisa Foster, Laura Puumala and Rosa Rantanen.

TEEMU MÄKI (b. 1967, Doctor of Visual Art) is a writer, visual artist, director (of theatre, opera, film) and researcher living in Kallio, Helsinki, Finland. His show in Critical Gallery, in March 2024, is his 61. solo exhibition.

More information:
www.teemumaki.com/
Kriittinen Galleria