Empathy Muscle

Empathy Muscle
15 – 25 February 2023
Finnish Cultural Institute in New York
26 Bond St Apt 2R, 10012 New York NY

Felipe de Ávila Franco * Ilana Harris-Babou * Hertta Kiiski * Patrick Carlin Mohundro * Jaakko Pallasvuo * Inari Sandell * Nina Sarnelle & Selwa Sweidan
Curated by Elina Suoyrjö

Wednesday the 15th of February
Performative presentation by Nina Sarnelle and Selwa Sweidan at 6:30pm
Opening and publication launch 7-9 pm

16 – 25 February
Exhibition opening hours Tuesday to Saturday 1–6pm
(or by appointment, please email info@fciny.org)

Empathy Muscle is a pop-up group exhibition, which invites us to think about different forms of practicing empathy. The show features work by both US and Finland-based artists. From thinking about empathy towards ourselves as well as towards other humans and nonhuman entities around us, the show encourages us to put feelings first and open up for encountering another being.

To begin the opening event, Selwa Sweidan and Nina Sarnelle will do a performative presentation of their project Touch Praxis, including a live reading from their contribution to the Exercises in Togetherness publication, entitled Dream Zoom. The contribution takes a critical fictioning approach to sharing their past conversations, questions and influences, many of which have emerged during zoom workshops held in the last few years as part of Touch Praxis. The text takes the form of a "fabulated" (see: Saidiya Hartman, Donna Haraway) zoom call, which maps a constellation of chosen ancestors, inspirations, and collaborators close and far, present and past.

Empathy Muscle exhibition concludes FCINY’s Exercises in Togetherness program, which has been running since 2021 in collaboration with American and Finnish artists, and New York and Helsinki-based art organizations.

Through commissions, talks, presentations, and readings, the program has focused on notions of togetherness and care within societies dealing with the repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic. As we’re slowly beginning to see how these repercussions are actually unfolding on personal and societal levels, the program has offered a series of intimate gatherings for beginning to unravel some of these multifaceted questions; co-existence between human and nonhumans, acts of dreaming and fantasizing collectively, building cross-generational bonds with peers, significance of communities, and rethinking the balance between labor and leisure.

The program has featured contributions by Chloë Bass, DeForrest Brown Jr. & James Hoff, Alaina Claire Feldman, Laura Cemin, Danilo Correale, Gordon Hall, Miho Hatori, E. Jane, Mari Keski-Korsu, Josefina Nelimarkka, Jaakko Pallasvuo, Inari Sandell, Asiya Wadud, and Zelda webzine. Previous iterations of the program have been carried out in collaboration with Frame Contemporary Art Finland, PUBLICS, Residency Unlimited, Scandinavia House, and Mishkin Gallery.

In conjunction with the exhibition opening, we are launching the Exercises in Togetherness publication, which includes contributions by Nella Aarne, Laura Cemin, Danilo Correale, Taraneh Fazeli, Miho Hatori, Mari Keski-Korsu, Minna Miettilä & Jessie Bullivant, Jaakko Pallasvuo, and Nina Sarnelle & Selwa Sweidan on care, collaboration, rest, and resistance. The publication is designed by Ran-Re Reimann, and edited by Elina Suoyrjö, Director of Programs at the FCINY.