If Man is an Island, 23.9.-17.10.2021
Artist collective Kunst (Christina Holmlund, Pia Paldanius, Sirpa Päivinen, Anu Suhonen and Julia Weckman)
HAA Gallery, Viaborg, Helsinki
The exhibition If Man is an Island is about human rights. It highlights the often hidden ways to exercise power, social structures, and rules constructing society.
Algorithms define and divide people into winners or losers. Algorithms calculate end results and predict futures. They are like coded opinions that, at worst, distort the truth and lead to discrimination. Algorithms are not visible, their scale is predictable and they can be destructive.
The exhibition contains two bodies of works where Artist collective Kunst has utilized data flow, inquiries, and questionnaires made to their customers by the Social insurance institution of Finland (Kela), unemployment office, and the Immigration office Migri, as well as visual information and virtual reality. The core idea in this exhibition is that the individual is part of humanity. No man is an island, in itself sufficient. If a person becomes an island, he becomes sightless.
