The Posture of Impermanence

The Posture of Impermanence exhibition at Vantaa gives an overview of today’s performance art

Vantaa Art Museum Artsi’s fall exhibition examens performance art in Finland over the last 20 years, focusing on phenomena in recent years. The Posture of Impermanence exhibition is a collaboration with the Uniarts Helsinki’s Live Art and Performance Studies master’s programme, turning 20 this year. Since 2016, Artsi has specialized in street, graffiti and performance art, in addition to contemporary art. The Posture of Impermanence exhibition is on show 12 November 2021–23 January 2022.

Performance, and how you do it: proposals for the relationships between humans, live beings, materials and things.

The 21st century has seen a transformation in the art field, with performance art being moved into new environments, such as social media. Performance art, which escapes exact definitions and undergoes constant change, has moved from the brinks of the art world into the limelight, from outside institutions into the exhibition halls of major art museums. The Posture of Impermanence exhibition showcases both older and newer works, with a focus on recent years. At the same time, the exhibition asks: what can performance be? How can it be displayed in a museum? How is temporary art displayed at an exhibition that lasts longer than the event of the piece?

Performance is imprecise movement. Performance does not seek solutions – it is a way of doing, a style of thinking, position of resistance or the setting of questions between contradictory matters.

Performance art is not action where boundaries of appropriateness are consciously sought or crossed, but rather about how this crossing or change takes place. This is why performance art has the power to change the surrounding world and the future.

The Posture of Impermanence exhibition has been curated by professor Tero Nauha from Uniarts Helsinki’s Live Art and Performance Studies master’s programme and Vantaa Art Museum Artsi’s Exhibition Curator Christine Langinauer.

The artists are Antti Ahonen, Tea Andreoletti, Freja Bäckman, Yun-Chen Chang, Anna Cadia, Dash Che, Jessica Guez, Harold Hejazi, Fjolla Hoxha, Amanda Hunt, Tina Jeranko, Minerva Juolahti, Essi Kausalainen, Leena Kela, Kemê, Katriina Kettunen, Petros Konnaris, Karolina Kucia, Maija Linturi, James Lórien MacDonald, Stefanía Ólafsdóttir, H Ouramo, Pilvi Porkola, Vishnu Vardhani Rajan, Ladapha Sophonkunkit, Olga Spyropoulou, Onur Tayranoğlu and Timo Viialainen.

In addition to the permanent display, the exhibition includes performance events on 12 November, 25 November, 4 December, 22 January and 23 January.

Details about the performance events can be found here.