Mutatis Mutandis

Curatorial project
2024
Finland

"Mutatis Mutandis is an exhibition that presents multiple perceptions of Finnish landscapes. Mutatis Mutandis is a Latin locution meaning ‘with things changed that should be changed’. In constant dynamics, the territory in Finland differs, varies, moves, shifts, and slowly drifts to write new memories. Landscape, understood as geographical territory, has extensively affected people's lives. On the other hand, people's actions and political decisions have the power to influence how landscape is used and perceived. These mutual relationships create ongoing mutations and transformations, with ‘changed landscapes that should be changed’. The fluidity of our territories invites us to create markers and expand our perspectives to include wider notions of home and belonging. Who is living and how? What are the dynamics? Who is using (practicing) the space?

Mutatis Mutandis is a political gesture, a call for action to develop a collective effort in shaping a wider notion of landscape - one that distances itself from the hegemonic nationalistic landscape narrative - in the context of Finnish society. The reality of spaces and places is changing and, therefore, the identities they are interlinked with, are in constant shift, too. Mutatis Mutandis initiates the search for these identities; and their multiple variations appear through a variety of practices, media and materialities. Such multiplicity is symbolic of the complexities emerging in relation between ideas of landscape, home and belonging."

Clément Beraud

While waiting to exist in a physical space, the exhibition has been released in the form of a book and has been published in January 2024 in 50 copies. 20x15cm, 126 pages. Contributors include interviews, essays and artworks text from Ahmed Al-Nawas, Sasha Huber, Outi Pieski, Pia Sirén, Nayab Ikram, Baran Caginli, Lois Armas, Jaakko Ruuska and Clément Beraud. / Published and edited by Clément Beraud