My Baltic Life
Bita Razavi

3-10.2.2018

OPENING: Saturday 3.2.2018, 16-20
CLOSING reception: Saturday, 10.02.2018, 16-20
VISITING HOURS: Monday to Thursday (5-8 .2.2018) 16 - 19 
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https://www.facebook.com/events/214780895756982/

The exhibition investigates the rising xenophobia in eastern Europe with the arrival of the new wave of refugees in 2015. The works including a series of photographs, a video, and objects gathered from abandoned houses in Baltic region from 2015-17, explore the xenophobic nationalism in relation with the succession of national traumas of historic proportions in the region.

In eastern Europe, where borders were frequently redrawn, the nation is still widely seen as an ethnic/cultural entity rather than a political one, and cultural and ethnic homogeneity is regarded as an asset that helps to prevent the disintegration of the state. Eastern European nations did not experience the favorable economic impact of large-scale immigration in the 1960-70s. What they did experience was existential danger to their states during historical turning points, especially if cohabiting with “alien” ethnic populations.

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Bita Razavi lives and works between Helsinki and Metsakivi, Estonia. Her practice is centered around observations and reflections on variety of everyday situations. Razavi examines the inner workings of social systems in relation with the political structures and national events of historic proportions in various countries. She reacts to the agency of the objects and the systems as they act upon her, and as she documents and records them. Razavi has exhibited her work at Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art/ Finnish Museum of Photography/ Helsinki Design Museum/ SESC Pompeia, Brazil/ Cité international des Art/ Göteborg International Biennal for Contemporary Art/ and National Art Museum of Ukraine. In 2017 she received the Oskar Öflund Foundation’s grand prize.
https://bitarazavi.com/
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