Lux Helsinki|According to Souri, the organizer of the Lux festival has implied that the issue has been settled together, but he has not been contacted.
Artist Katariina Souri says that the long controversy over his collection of works criticizing the treatment of indigenous peoples has had a crippling effect on his work.
The Lux Helsinki light festival published a press release on Thursday expressing its apologies to the artist Souri. The release states that the attention to content attached to Souri’s work at the Lux festival was “unnecessarily formulated”.
The regret came half a year after the event in January. In Souri’s opinion, the timing of the apology is “shocking”.
“I’ve been hanging on a loose log for half a year under tremendous pressure. It has been really hard in every way, mentally and financially. It has been difficult to focus on my own work, because this unfinished business has weighed on me,” he says.
Sourin A collection of 19 works Bottom contact was part of the Lux Helsinki festival organized in January 2024, where it was projected onto the surrounding buildings of Helsinki’s Senate Square.
smile notices that the festival has been sarcastic in its regrets in certain contexts. According to him, such a case was, for example, the chairman of the Sami youth in Finland Petra Laitin recent statement. In Laiti’s opinion, one of Souri’s works was an old-fashioned and stereotypical description of a Sámi woman and a reindeer.
“When Laiti laughed at my painting in her Instagram update, Lux Helsinki apologized within a day or so of the publication,” says Souri.
On Thursday in its announcement, Lux Helsinki admits many of the errors highlighted by Souri. Among other things, the message of the work was unclear due to advance marketing.
This is how the media reports on a collection of works based on one individual work.
For example In an interview with Helsingin Sanomat the work was criticized for its clichéd and repetitive description of Sámi. According to Souri, the purpose of the work was to criticize the colonization history of indigenous peoples, but the message was unclear due to a marketing error
For example, opposite Suurkirkko was placed a work of a crying Inuit girl, towards which a Sámi girl was looking. With the still life, Souri criticizes the cruel influence of Christianity on the culture of the indigenous people.
“Here, the intention was specifically to use archetypal imagery to tell a larger story,” he says.
“As an artist, I am a symbolist, and the criticized work also had planets in the sky. The imagery was not stereotypical.”
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“You can always hope for better.”
Sourin the ensemble of works was presented at the festival in an exceptional way, as the organizer, the Helsinki Events Foundation, reacted to the criticism by adding the now regretted content attention to the ensemble.
It was played on loudspeakers in the event area, and it was also the text on the signboard.
CEO of the Helsinki Events Foundation Stuba Nikula stated on Thursday at HSthat the announcement was played “too often” and “too loudly”.
Soap however, there is a certain disagreement between the organizing body and the artist regarding the achievement.
Nikula told HS on Thursday that he and Souri have been in conversation throughout the spring and “we have sought a common understanding”. However, according to Souri, he has not been in contact with the organizers of the event, the lawyers have taken care of things.
“Nikula let it be understood that somehow this has been arranged together, but he has not been in any contact with anything else,” says Souri.
Particularly Souri is sorry that the criticism of his work has led to hate speech against the Sámi people. In the Some discussion, the Sámi have been called “offended” and cultural insults have been considered a curse word.
“It was mentally heavy for me that I exposed them to this same hatred, even though I have really tried to defend their rights.”
Are you happy with the deal though?
“You can always hope for better, but I’m satisfied with what came out of it now.”