Pauline Curnier Jardin and set designer Rachel García have together created carnivalistic backdrops for the exhibition – their colours and lights draw us in. The soundscape created for the occasion generates an amusement park-like atmosphere. But, both the scenography and the sound warn us that something more ambiguous is about to emerge.

French artist Pauline Curnier Jardin’s exhibition transforms Kiasma’s exhibition space into a grotesque theme park. The film works that await us in its depths offer glimpses into the fate of women and others marginalised in various ways in “entertainment” and as objects of power.

The films in the exhibition deal with gender norms, power and violence, for example, through historical events, the carnality associated with the Catholic Faith, and the experience industry with its emphasis on romance. They show the power relations in society in a garish, sometimes comical, light. The female body is presented as object of power, but women also subvert and wield power.

The exhibition has been supported by the French Institute in Finland.

Pauline Curnier Jardin (b. 1980, Marseille, France) lives and works in Marseille and works between Amsterdam, Zurich, Berlin and Rome.

She received the Preis der Nationalgalerie in 2019. Her works have been shown for instance at: Art Basel; Venice Biennale; Tate Modern, London; and Centre Pompidou, Paris.

This is Curnier Jardin’s first solo exhibition in Finland where she lived for a year early in her career.