Sanna Hukkanen’s exhibition: An EthnoGrapher's Travelling Home Museum
02/26/2025Exhibition: Koli Nature Centre Ukko, upstairs exhibition space 3rd March – 28th April 2025. Welcome to the exhibition opening on Sunday 2nd of March at 14.00!
From her trips to the Finno-Ugric world, Sanna Hukkanen has brought back many kinds of treasures: gifts, magic amulets, and collections of souvenirs mocking the authoritarian leader.
The EthnoGrapher's Travelling Home Museum exhibition is built around Sanna Hukkanen‘s graphic novel Taiga – EtnoGraafinen matkakertomus (An EthnoGraphic Travelogue). Taiga is based on Hukkanen’s sketch book travel diaries from her trips into the Finno-Ugric world before the pandemic and war, when cultural collaboration projects were still possible with the language groups related to Finnish.
A Finnish comics artist and a Russian linguist encounter endangered language speaking activists on their travels. Grannies, urban youth, journalists and shamans make them rethink their understanding of the world. The indigenous minorities in contemporary Russia are allowed to dance and perform in exotic costumes but having a radio station in their own language crosses the line. While following the footsteps of the old time ethnographers the travellers also meet a mythical bear and a golden goddess. There’s still some magic in Taiga.
Sanna Hukkanen (born 1978) is a comics artist living in Joensuu, in Finnish Karelia. The protagonists of her graphic novels are mythical forests, old trees, mushrooms and often also human beings. She explores the relationship between human and the non-human, as well as the human-to-human relationships through questions of ecological and social justice, folkloristic sources and autobiography. Hukkanen has worked in community art projects that use grassroots comics to give voice to minorities and activists. She believes that art is a powerful tool for hope and change.