The exhibition of international photographic art was included in the programme of Turku European Capital of Culture 2011. In Turku, the exhibition inaugurated the new cultural venue of Logomo, where it presented the works of 31 artists during the year.
– We are happy and honoured to see this, the most extensive exhibition of the Turku Capital of Culture year, travelling the world and initiating dialogue between different cultures and in diverse cultural settings, says Cay Sevón, Executive Director of the Turku 2011 Foundation.
The name of the exhibition refers to Lewis Carroll’s famous book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), in which a girl falls down a rabbit hole and ends up in strange places. Like the book, the exhibition moves from depictions of everyday life to fantasy worlds created or presented by the artists, and life is manifested as a ceaseless wavering on the borderline between these two domains. Fantastic everyday life and everyday fantasies meet in a way that challenges viewers to make new interpretations and adopt fresh perspectives.
The authors also introduce the term fantasy feminism into the field of art, to offer an updated alternative to existing feminist art. Instead of showing us everyday life and its regular forms, the contemporary artists look for their own space, which can take the form of imagining things, as in Alice in Wonderland.
As the exhibition shows, the slogan “the personal is political” has been replaced by “the private is public”. Today, the portrait and self-portrait are increasingly becoming carefully controlled identity building projects, with the internet acting as their effective distribution channel. This world, with its “carnival of images”, is commented on by many of the exhibited artists in many different ways.
The exhibition has an international group of curators, including the chief curator of the Finnish Museum of Photography Anna-Kaisa Rastenberger, the director of the Finnish Museum of Photography Elina Heikka and the editor-in-chief Sheyi Bankale of Next Level magazine in the UK. The exhibition is produced by the coordinator of the Finnish Museum of Photography, Tiina Rauhala. Publications related to the exhibition are the 180-page, trilingual exhibition catalogue designed by the graphic designer Réka Király.
Exhibition artists in Spain are: Claudia Angelmaier (Germany), Atelieri O. Haapala (Finland), Evan Baden (USA), Thorsten Brinkmann (Germany), Elina Brotherus (Finland), Saara Ekström (Finland), Melinda Gibson (UK), Hanna Haaslahti (Finland), Sasha Huber (Finland), Ulla Jokisalo (Finland), Marjaana Kella (Finland), Anni Leppälä (Finland), Susanna Majuri (Finland), Ján Mančuška (Slovakia), Juhana Moisander (Finland), Trish Morrissey (Ireland), Zed Nelson (UK), Anneli Nygren (Finland), Tuula Närhinen (Finland), Alain Paiement (Canada), Nelli Palomäki (Finland), Hyun-doo Park (Republic of Korea), Riitta Päiväläinen (Finland), Harri Pälviranta (Finland), Sanni Seppo (Finland), Iiu Susiraja (Finland).
Adjoined to the Alice in Wonderland exhibition is a photographic overview of Turku’s year as the European Capital of Culture.
