Period
since 2016
Proposed by
Pablo José Ramírez
Location
Helsinki
About the project
Museum of Nonhumanity is a site-specific, touring museum that presents the history of the distinction between humans and non-humans and how this culturally constructed boundary is used to oppress humans and other beings. The museum functions as a “utopian institution” that “makes animalization history”. Its primary focus is on animalization: the process of declaring a group to be nonhuman or subhuman to justify violence, such as slavery, genocide, and medical experimentation.
Museum of Nonhumanity calls for the deconstruction of the categories of animality and humanity in order to enter a new, more inclusive era. – Gustafsson&Haapoja
Museum of Nonhumanity functions on three levels.
– First, its extensive, evolving audiovisual exhibition, consisting solely of archival texts and other historical sources, is a 70-minute journey through the boundary-making practice at the core of Western thought. It is a pedagogic tool but also a poetic memorial for all the bodies that have suffered and still suffer under the order of colonial Western ‘humanity’. It also asks what role museums and other institutions play in reinforcing and justifying systems of othering.
– Secondly, it’s an act of collective imagining of another kind of reality. By appropriating the authority of a museum, the Museum of Nonhumanity temporarily transforms the surrounding world into a place where dehumanisation is sealed into the past.
– Third, and most importantly, it’s a platform for bringing together utopian ideas across the fields of social justice, animal rights and rights of nature. Its vegan café, lecture programme, web archive, and audience outreach are curated by and for local audiences. While the exhibition looks back, the programming looks forward, inviting residents, visitors and practitioners to envision more inclusive futures.
A 280-page book titled Museum of Nonhumanity was published in 2019 by Punctum Books as a permanent record of the project.
External links
About the artist
Gustafsson&Haapoja is a Finnish artistic collaboration formed in 2012 by author and playwright Laura Gustafsson and visual artist Terike Haapoja. Their multidisciplinary work—spanning immersive installations, performance, video art, and publications—critically examines the boundaries between humans and other species.
