melanie bonajo

The temporary exhibitions space in Siipi will feature a show by the Berlin-based contemporary artist melanie bonajo. Pori Art Museum has in its collection a video work by bonajo entitled Nocturnal Gardening (2016), which belongs to bonajo’s Night Soil trilogy (2014–2016). The exhibition brings together all three works of the trilogy in an expanded installation form. The common theme in the works is human agency that operates beyond social norms. At their core, the works are about the establishment of alternative ways of being and rituals in the vacuum of meaning in contemporary society.

melanie bonajo (they/them/theirs) is a Dutch artist, film-maker, somatic sex coach and educator, cuddle workshop facilitator and activist creating immersive queer spaces. bonajo is interested in communities outside the mainstream, who live or work on the margins of society, either through cultural exclusion or because they do not belong to a normative system. Issues of ethical and empathic coexistence, body politics, equality and alternative forms of perception of the world and oneself are prominent in bonajo’s work.

Image credit: melanie bonajo, Night Soil – Economy of Love, 2015, still from a video, Courtesy the artist and AKINCI

The exhibition is supported by Finnish Heritage Agency.