Katriina Haikala: Drawing Performances

Wednesday, October 19, from 4–6 PM

Thursday, October 20, from 4–6 PM

Friday, October 21, from 4–6 PM

Saturday, October 22, from 4–6 PM

Sunday, October 23, from 4–6 PM

A.I.R. Gallery

“Because the history of art is the history of power.”

As part of her exhibition SOCIAL PORTRAIT, Finnish artist Katriina Haikala will be holding five durational drawing performances at A.I.R. Gallery. The exhibition is the latest iteration of the artist’s ongoing Social Portrait project, in which she aims to equalize the art canon by drawing one-thousand portraits of everyday women around the world.

Haikala says: “Portraits are traditionally made of people who hold powerful status in the social hierarchy. We all know what the faces of power have typically looked like—they have been men. My goal is to raise questions about women’s lack of presence in the canon of art, and particularly the history of portraiture. This is why I am drawing portraits only of people who identify as women.”

During the years 2017–2022, Haikala toured with her project in Finland, Italy, Spain, Norway, Japan, and Great Britain, visiting and drawing in art museums in Tokyo, Rome, London, Oslo, and Madrid.

Now, Haikala is inviting visitors at A.I.R. Gallery to participate as sitters in the drawing performances. Haikala will draw two portraits of each sitter, and in the end they will be able to choose which of the portraits they would like to keep for themselves.

Participation is free.

To find out more information about the project, visit the artist’s website.

Katriina Haikala (b. 1977) lives and works in Helsinki, Finland, and has worked as an independent artist since 2007. Haikala’s art practice is socially engaged, collaborative, participatory, and involves people in collaboration and social interaction. The body of her work is intertwined with activism and often deals with political issues such as human rights and equality. Haikala’s practice is interdisciplinary, involving performance, photography, visual art, and film. However, Haikala produces her work together with communities, with a passion for the visual and high quality of artistic work. Her best-known projects from recent years are “Social Portrait - Women Only,” where her aim is to draw one-thousand portraits of women from around the world, “Monokini 2.0 - Who Says You Need Two?,” a socially engaged art project which empowered single-breasted women who had survived breast cancer, and “Lupta Femeilor - Women’s Fight,” a community art project where she was an artist and a facilitator in the Eastern European Romani community.

Haikala has held solo exhibitions and participated in group exhibitions since 2007 in New York, Madrid, Berlin, London, Helsinki, Stockholm, Oslo, St. Petersburg, Tokyo, Rome, and elsewhere. She has received several national and regional grants and her work has been featured frequently in international media outlets (including Al Jazeera, the New York Daily News, Upworthy, Huffington Post, The Indian Times, and El Pais). Haikala is a member of MUU ry, Kuvasto, and AV-Ark.