Exhibition: "Margin to Margin: Women Living on the Edges of the World"

The exhibition is the final artistic outcome of the two-year project "Women Living on the Edges of the World". The project is an international research and art collaboration between various global artist communities with the goal to study how art empowers women living in marginal conditions in Finland, Russia and Australia. The art and research explores concepts of marginality, which in this project is defined by conditions of isolation and migration. This unique cross-continental collaboration explores and presents art and research processes of women working in different situations across various continents while facing similar challenges of isolation and marginality. Central to this study are women artists who may move from one role to another (be it spouse, mother, researcher, professional, teacher, artist, maker and friend), continuously fluctuating between identities to enable their becoming within communities, while surviving their marginalities. The exhibition incorporates the group’s ongoing reflections, data analysis, narrative representations and audiovisual materials in curated installations. It displays mixed-media artworks implemented in the techniques of traditional weaving, felting, painting and others, by individual artists, as well as collaboratively. Besides, the artistic outcomes have been reinterpreted in the form of installations and interactive pieces. In addition, the exhibition features a vast spectrum of video artworks, video documentation of artistic processes and photography artworks. The international project "Women Living on the Edges of the World" has been led by a research group involving Satu Miettinen, Tarja Wallius, Daria Akimenko and Melanie Sarantou. Research and community work has been conducted in Rovaniemi (Lapland, Finland), Murmansk (Russian Federation) and Port Augusta and Oak Valley (Australia). Throughout the presentation of the exhibition at the Helinä Rautavaara Museum, the group will engage in a set of activities involving audiences, including public screenings, presentations and a workshop. Melanie Sarantou and other Australian collaborators aim to join the exhibition on location with an extended group of artists, including aboriginal artists. For additional information about the project "Women Living on the Edges of the World", please visit https://margintomargin.com/ For further details about the exhibition "Margin to Margin", please visit http://helinamuseo.fi/en/margin-to-margin-6-9-2017-7-1-2018/