Joe Biden overlooks Helsinki’s Military Art Island

A ‘Happy Joe Cider’ costs € 5.50. The piece of paper stuck to the boat that takes visitors to the former military island of Vallisaari is only there temporarily, but it is a party. US President Joe Biden is in the Finnish city for two days. Former President Trump has also visited the city, but that was in 2018, to meet Russian President Putin. Biden has come to celebrate Finland’s entry into NATO.

The Finns, formerly the military neutral territory as a beacon between Russia and Northern Europe, not only have an interesting military history, but also know how to link art to their military past every two years. The question is of course whether Biden has time to delve into art and the military, but to get a handle on the military past of the Finns, he should actually take the boat to Vallisaari with a ‘Happy Joe Cider’ in hand. The largest part of an art biennale is located there along a three-kilometre route. It is the second time that the Helsinki Biennial (the organization says you can’t say Biennale, to avoid comparisons with Venice) is being organized on that island.

The first Biennial revolved around the theme The Same Sea – to emphasize that Finland belonged to Europe and was a safe buffer. That edition was a strong and extensive whole. For this year’s edition – much slimmed down and a little less convincing – 29 artists and collectives tackle the subject New Directions May Emerge. Art greets Finland’s new path.

Military lake

Fascinating, also from a military historical point of view, is the smoke coming out of a lake. In a place that breathes tranquility itself, the Finnish artists Sasha Huber and Petri Saarikko have built an installation right there where soldiers got their fresh water.

The small lake where their work Remedies can be seen, was dug by the military when they wanted to get rid of the Russian occupation. Initially under the yoke of the Swedes who had annexed Finland, it was the Russians who ruled the country since the early nineteenth century. After independence in 1920, the fresh water supply was no longer a storage place for military thirsty, but became a recreational lake. Due to the disruption of biodiversity, swimming is no longer allowed. Intervention, occupation, man shaping nature: the smoke from the lake disturbs the idyll and shows the military background of the island.

Baltic Sea

Menacing enough, as a visitor you will become aware of that during that walk on the beautiful island. The Russian threat is less present in the other works, but this Biennial is about disasters enough, especially: the ecological disaster with which man destroys himself. The Baltic Sea in which the island of Vallisaari is located is one of the most polluted seas in terms of military munitions. Apart from the plastic and chemical pollution, there is a good dose of military waste here.

The Lithuanian artist Emilija Skarnulyte responds well to this. In her video artwork Hypoxia she looks at the sea from the perspective of an ‘alien archaeologist’ who examines the remains of the Cold War in the sea. What this ‘archaeologist’ finds is the result of that war and of mining in the deep sea. Dead zones are the result and the ‘choking’ of life becomes the new normal.

Since 2006, the Finnish artist Tuula Närhinen has been collecting the waste that washes up on the island in the Baltic Sea where she works. She came up with a beautiful looking, but gloomy installation The Plastic Horizon. Sort the plastic waste by color and you have a sample card that many a paint store will envy.

Not everything is equally fascinating: a video work explaining that ‘water is life’, as the French artist Tabita Rezaire repeatedly repeats, is boring. The same goes for the profound words whispered by British-Portuguese artist Diana Policarpo in her film about capitalism and biodiversity. All important messages, but visual artists are simply better at showing than telling. Although: the sculptures that are supposed to represent the organic remains of a beast, and have been dropped in all kinds of places on the island, by the Argentinian Adrián Villar Rojas are not very interesting either.

The future of the moth

What Biden can learn from the island can mainly be found in the works in the bunkers, such as that of the Sámi artist Matti Aikio, which is shown in an old gunpowder warehouse. In his collage video work Oikos you see the habitat of the Sámi where windmills and fossil energy compete for space, without taking into account that it is also a habitat. Images run over each other without a word being said, and ultimately it’s all about the traces that the government and companies leave their traces on a forgotten society.

Or take Lotta Petronella, a filmmaker who created the installation together with a sound artist Materia Medica of Islands put down. Living on the Finnish island of Seili herself for two decades – on which the sick and other unwanted residents of mainland Finland were placed for four centuries, until 1962 – she combines healing and destruction in one work. Herbs of yesteryear, music and embroidered moths form the whole. Each moth has a different meaning, its own poem too. Whereby the text at the moth ‘The High Priest’ summarizes the entire Biennial and the background well: „I am the son of war, / I am the son of river, / a survivor of pollution. // I am your teacher / hold softly my legacy / the skies are changing(“I am the son of war, / I am the son of the river, / A survivor of pollution. // I am your teacher / Gently hold my legacy / The sky is changing”). Indeed: New Directions May Emerge with a Joe Cider in hand, but whether it is actually so cheerful: you would say not.