Acts of Care

Acts of Care - Exhibition series

Period: Feb 22th (Saturday), 2025 – April 26th (Saturday), 2025
Organizer: Kana Kawanishi Art Office LLC

The Acts of Care exhibition has evolved from its presentation at the 15th Gwangju Biennale, curated by Kati Kivinen and Pirkko Siitari. The Tokyo edition will feature new site-specific installations by artists Maija Tammi, Hertta Kiiski, Nayab Noor Ikram, Sampsa Virkajärvi.

Both Finland and Japan hold very high rates in aging of the population. The mutual care between children and parents, where they fulfill their roles within their community and share their lives, is a universal phenomenon among all living beings. In our current society, where the demand for care is rising for various reasons, how will the realities we face connect with artistic endeavors that inspire our imagination?

Maija Tammi’s solo exhibition “Octomom” from February 22nd to March 29th, 2025, KANA KAWANISHI PHOTOGRAPHY

“Octomom” is an installation that consists of three elements: an audio story, a video projected onto sand, and a portrait of a mother with her new-born. The work revolves around a deep-sea octopus whom the scientists named “Octomom”.

In Octomom, octopus, human, and time intertwine. The installation combines video footage of Octomom, an audio story about the octopus’s brooding period, and a self-portrait of the artist with her newborn child. The octopus (Graneledone boreopacifica), which researchers named Octomom, brooded her eggs for 53 months in the Monterey Canyon in the Pacific Ocean, which is the longest known brooding period in the world. A robot submarine from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute visited Octomom a total of 18 times. The work includes footage filmed by the robot, edited by the artist.

Maija Tammi (b. 1985) is a Finnish artist and Doctor of Arts, whose practice is characterized by the desire to find the underlying cause of things. She often collaborates with scientists and other artists to create artworks that confront, surprise and provoke feelings. This is Tammi’s second solo exhibition at our gallery, the first one was “White Rabbit Fever” in 2017.

In her recent works, Maija Tammi has explored how we learn to feel and how we understand the meanings of emotions. Although we can never truly know what it would be like to be an octopus, we can still toy with the idea. We can try to understand and at the same time possibly develop our feelings towards other species. Octomom proposes sharing the experience of motherhood with an individual from another species, and asks us what empathy really is.”

Hertta Kiiski’s solo exhibition “Plasticenta” from March 22 to April 26th, 2025, KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY

The exhibition, titled “Plasticenta,” merges the words “plastic” and “placenta,” drawing inspiration from a recently discovered microplastic particles in human placenta. Kiiski, renowned for her immersive mixed-media installations that incorporate photography, examines our intricate relationship with the earth and our coexistence with other species and the environment.

Plasticenta imagines an alternative future, in which all life forms on the planet mingle with each other in harmony, with dreams of new alliances between species, transforming existing hierarchies. The work depicts a new kinship between the human and the inhuman, the organic and the inorganic, the animate and inanimate.”

Kiiski has collaborated with her two daughters on various projects for over a decade, including the series Plasticenta and the video work Hydra, both of which will be showcased in this exhibition. The work Hydra explores the bond of love and friendship between two girls and the immortal polyp known as ‘Hydra,’ discovered on a remote island. The is score created by Lau Nau. Additionally, the exhibition will feature a site-specific installation made from textiles that Kiiski found during her stay in Tokyo.

Hertta Kiiski works and lives in Turku, Finland. She earned an M.F.A from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts (2015) and a B.A in Photography from the Turku Arts Academy (2012). Her work is presented in galleries and museums internationally and in Finland.

Nayab Noor Ikram, and Sampsa Virkajärvi: “Families” from April 5th to April 26th, 2025, KANA KAWANISHI PHOTOGRAPHY

Nayab Noor Ikram (1992) is a Finland-based visual artist and photographer of the Pakistani diaspora from the Åland Islands. In her artistic practice, Ikram engages with moving images, photography, performances, and installations, exploring concepts related to the feeling of in-betweenness, cultural identity, and memory through rituals and symbolism. In her artistic practice, Ikram works with moving image, photography, performances, and installations exploring concepts dealing with the feeling of in-betweenship, cultural identity, and memory through rituals and symbolism.

The Family, a two-channel video installation featured in this exhibition, captures the performance of the artist and her family. Set against the backdrop of a stunning sunset, the mother ritualistically begins to wash the artist’s hair. While their elongated voices evoke nostalgia reminiscent of a childhood call and seem to resonate with each viewer’s roots, this improvisation fosters communication that elicits the tensions, emotions, and memories within each family member, prompting us to reflect on the creation and inheritance of traditions and rituals.

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The other artist, Sampsa Virkajärvi (1970), is a visual artist and documentary filmmaker interested in time and change and society, as well as in individual choices and the impossibilities of making them. His work explores the experiences that arise from the pressures of economic power and technological innovation, addressing cultural and historical issues. This exhibition will feature two video works by Virkajärvi.

In What Remains?, the artist portrays the final years of his mother, who suffers from dementia, in her home, illustrating how time and place shift as the disease advances. How many homes does she inhabit at once? The work also seeks to depict some of the challenges that aging individuals and their caregivers face when she does not remember, see, or understand.

The other work, With You, is a nonfiction piece about his father, documented by the artist until the father took his last breath. His father, who was once the pillar of the family as a pilot, spends almost all day in bed during his final years. Although his father was quite different from the artist in many ways—including the societies they grew up in, their careers, and even their personalities—the artist expresses deep respect for his father while revealing quiet, mixed feelings, concluding with the following words: “Of your 80 years, we spent 18 together. (…) We may not have spent enough time together.”

Every person, creature, and life has a parent who passed down its genes. In our fast-paced lives, we often turn away from our childhood past and the inevitable separation that lies ahead. The works of these two artists remind us of the importance of the family unit and the past and future we often overlook, highlighting the preciousness of what we currently hold in our hands.

The Acts of Care exhibition is part of the ‘pARTir initiative’ project (NextGenerationEU) funded by the European Union and supported by the Finnish Institute in Japan.