Gustafsson & Haapoja

The exhibitions, stage work and publications of Gustafsson&Haapoja focus on the problems that arise from the anthropocentric worldview of Western traditions. They were awarded the Kiila Prize for socially engaged art in 2013 and the Finnish State Media Art Award in 2016.

The first part of their collaboration, the large scale exhibition Museum of the History of Cattle, was first shown in Helsinki in 2013. The accompanying book History According to Cattle (Into Publishing, punctum books and Gustafsson&Haapoja) was published in 2015. The participatory courtroom performance The Trial, commissioned by the Baltic Circle Festival / Eva Neklyaeva, explored the notion of nonhuman legal personhood and the rights of nature. As Flow Festival’s Visual Artists of the Year, Gustafsson&Haapoja presented their work Embrace your Empathy! at the festival in 2016. Their third project, Museum of Nonhumanity, a touring museum that presents the history of the human-animal boundary and how it has been used to oppress beings of all kinds, opened in Helsinki in 2016 and has since toured in Momentum Biennale (Norway), Santarcangelo Festival (Italy) and Turner Contemporary (UK). 

Participates in the exhibition "Science Friction" with the installation and video The Museum of the History of Cattle, 2013-2021.