Stories of Labor
Minna Henriksson,
Minna Henriksson’s project has the Conditions of Peace archive of interviews as an entry point into a new body of work. Her lino prints are based on observations of the society in which she lives. They speak of a number of encounters with contemporary capitalism and labour relations.
Out of the questions within Conditions of Peace archive Henriksson found the set of questions relating to the notion of “peace” the most intriguing, and derived from there at thinking about increasing polarisation within societies everywhere in Europe. Several of the interviewees within the Conditions of Peace project spoke of a growing split within society: rich and poor; satisfied and hungry; privileged and people at the bottom; and racist and racialised. There was a direct link made between increasing inequality and the threat that it poses to peace. In other words, contemporary capitalism causes war.
Henriksson’s work is in progress and she will contribute with additional new prints for each of the iterations of the Conditions of Peace exhibition.
Minna Henriksson was born in 1976 in Oulu, Finland. She has studied art in Brighton, Helsinki and Malmö, and since then lived long periods in South East Europe. In 2009 she returned to Helsinki and was faced with urgency to respond to increased nationalism and racism through her artwork. Henriksson is interested in bringing visible covert politics and uses of power, and works often collaboratively in research-based projects. In 2017 she was awarded with the Anni and Heinrich Sussmann Award of artistic work committed to the ideal of democracy and antifascism.
