The work called Bottom Touch is part of the Lux Helsinki event. It starts on Wednesday and ends on Sunday.
Artist Katariina Sourin a work of light art Bottom contact was revealed to the media on Tuesday at Helsinki's Senate Square. The piece is part of the Lux Helsinki event that starts on Wednesday and ends on Sunday.
Bottom contact consists of oil paintings depicting the mythical north projected onto the buildings surrounding the square. There are 19 of them in total, and they go around almost the entire market. The music of the work was composed by Johnny Lee Michaels.
In paintings there are, among other things, fells, swans and polar bears, as well as a controversial, shocked female figure with her reindeer. The character of the Sámi woman painted by Souri has been criticized as stereotypical. On Lux Helsinki's website, the criticism is acknowledged with an element slightly reminiscent of a content warning, a content note.
“There are parts in the work where indigenous peoples are described stereotypically. Instead of removing the gallery or the entire work, we want to generate constructive thinking about reconciling the rights of indigenous peoples and the freedom of art,” the note reads. The same attention is paid to the presentation of works in the Sámi language as well.
Katariina Souri is presented on Lux Helsingin's website as a “self-taught artist who has worked extensively in the field of culture”.
“He has worked as a screenwriter as well as a writer, but in recent years he has primarily focused on visual arts,” the introduction says.
Out of the 19 works circulating in the Senate square, one, a Sámi woman, has prevented a lot of polemics and criticisms of stereotyping in advance.
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