Minna Henriksson: Hidden

Visual artist Minna Henriksson’s works are often based on extensive archive research and draw on real historical events. Examined critically, historiography also reveals power structures and discrimination.

The exhibition includes works that in one way or another relate to Oulu from 2012–2024. Also included is the ever-expanding Kiila Feminist Archive, which brings together the early history of the Kiila artists’ organisation through the works of the group’s female members.

The works can be divided into two themes: some of them highlight Finnish nationalism and its derivatives, racism and fascism, in the past and today. The second part of the exhibition shows the possibilities of resistance, refusal and dissent, in other words, how war and oppression can be and have been resisted.

The exhibition also includes archive material from the artist’s private collection, objects from the collections of the Museum of Northern Ostrobothnia and a film from the national broadcaster Yleisradio’s archive.

Minna Henriksson (b. 1976, Oulu, Finland, lives in Helsinki) is a visual artist working with a disparate range of tools including text, drawing, painting and linocut. In dealing with historical cases, Henriksson hopes to politicise contemporary events that seem neutral and inevitable. The ideological nature of historiography is a recurring theme in her work.