Inari Sandell: Butterfly Logic

Inari Sandell’s Butterfly Logic traces the flight paths of butterflies to question how societies define “normal” movement and cognition. Bringing together video essay, photography, and sculpture, the installation places the butterfly’s flight in dialogue with the diverse ways that autistic minds and bodies navigate the world.
What may appear senseless to the human eye is, for the butterfly, an evolved strategy of survival. Its seemingly “erratic” pattern protects it from predators. Sandell presents the butterfly as a figure of resistance to normative expectations placed on bodies and minds, suggesting that divergent ways of moving and thinking constitute their own coherent logics—queer, intelligent, and fully valid in their difference.

The work was originally produced for the 2024 exhibition programme at the Fundació Joan Miró’s Espai 13 in Barcelona. Sandell’s practice in 2026 is kindly supported by The Finnish Cultural Foundation. The production of this show has also received support from The Alfred Kordelin Foundation, Fundació Joan Miró, and Frame Contemporary Art Finland. The scaffolding structures for this exhibition are provided by Telinekataja. Thank you for all the support!
The exhibition is dedicated to the memory of Kaisa Koisti. Rest in peace and flutter free, dear friend.
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Inari Sandell (b. 1991 in Lahti, FI) is a Helsinki-based visual artist who works with image, space and material in a multidisciplinary way. Central to their practice is a personal and research-based engagement with themes related to neurodiversity. Sandell graduated with a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree from Uniarts Helsinki’s Academy of Fine Arts in 2023. Their work has been exhibited internationally at a variety of museums and galleries, including Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona, HAM Helsinki Art Museum and Kunsthalle Helsinki in Helsinki, Tampere Art Museum in Tampere, UKS in Oslo, Hafnarborg Centre of Culture and Fine Art in Hafnarfjörður, The Finnish Cultural Institute in New York, and Titanik in Turku.
Sandell’s work is in the collections of Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, HAM Helsinki Art Museum, Tampere Art Museum, WAM Museum of Contemporary Art, and the HUS Helsinki University Hospital.