31.10. — 23.11.2025, Photographic Gallery Hippolyte

Two women are searching for some relief in their lives. They wander through idyllic rural landscapes, spending time in conversation, yet nothing seems to endure. The brown leather sofa feels oppressive. The mind, however, adjusts with surprising ease to ever-changing circumstances.

In the film, the women talk about men – what else would they talk about? – especially one: Janne. Oh, Janne… I love my husband, even though I wish I didn’t. There’s another man in the film too, a hot one, swept away by his hunger for the road. The women’s relationship to men is ambiguous, yet hopeful. The film’s characters exist in the present moment and, at the same time, within fragmentary memories whose authenticity is assessed by an external, technologically aided agency.

The sense of security – and its absence – punctuates life. From inner experiences to close relationships and public spaces: can these ever truly be separated? Signs and hints of conflict are etched into the structures of everyday life: torn-off stickers, scratches on railings, and clothes abandoned on the street.

The exhibition at Photographic Gallery Hippolyte is Jade Kallio’s exploration of a dissociative reality, where biopower and norms shape the boundaries of body and gender, as well as social multidimensionality, euphoria, and joy beyond these institutionalised limits. The exhibition features a fictional video work and spatial elements: supporting structures, clothing, and traces of resistance. Kallio seeks to challenge established social norms and conventions, particularly the ways in which the bodies of gender-minority individuals are interpreted and regulated in a surveilled society.

In Sterile Structures, the conditions in which the work takes place are not just the backdrop to the process, but part of the story itself. The exhibition asks from whose perspective the story is told, and by what means emotions and experiences become part of a shared reality.

Kallio’s works often emerge from collective processes that explore memory, the construction of reality, and questions of narrative power. Their current projects blend documentary, speculative fiction, and elements of magical realism, while also taking into account production structures and working conditions – that is, how and by whom stories and futures are created.

Jade Kallio (b. 1978, Kauhajoki) is a filmmaker and artist based in Helsinki. Their work explores the meanings of gender and corporeality, as well as the spaces and social structures in which these are produced. Kallio approaches these questions both from personal perspectives and broader biopolitical frameworks. They hold a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Turku Arts Academy and a Master of Fine Arts from the Department of Spatial and Temporal Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki. Their films and exhibitions have been presented both in Finland and internationally. Kallio’s work has been shown at, among others, the Helsinki International Film Festival – Love & Anarchy, DocPoint – Helsinki Documentary Film Festival, International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival, European Media Art Festival (EMAF award 2019), International Film Festival Rotterdam, Turku Art Museum, HAM Gallery, and CCA Derry~Londonderry.

Their work and the exhibition have been supported by AVEK, the Saastamoinen Foundation, and the Kone Foundation.