Artists: How to Life (Andrea Coyotzi Borja & Anna Jensen), Tereza Holubová, Teresa Kari, Mette Matilda, Anna Pekkala, Raimo Saarinen, Emma Suominen 

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Polygala Biennale – Plants, Animals and Things In-between will spread across the Natural History Museum’s staircase, PopUp Balcony, History of Life, Story of Bones and World Nature exhibition spaces. The multi-sensory and experiential group exhibition presents artists who work with plants, animals and the imaginary and fictional creatures that lie in between. The exhibition continues the tradition of interplay between art and the natural sciences. Scientific advances and taxonomic processes have created an image of a world that is thoroughly mapped, known and named. However, there is still much that is unknown, and art can act as a means of approaching that. Art offers a place to imagine other ways of being and, on the other hand, to create new perspectives on what we already know. The temporary exhibition will interact with the Natural History Museum’s history, research, taxonomy, objects and permanent exhibitions, and will bring artistic work and research alongside scientific collections, offering new insights and stories alongside existing ones. 

The exhibition is named after the Polygalaceae: Polygala is a large genus of plants, commonly known as milkworts or snakeroots. The scientific name of the plant translates directly as ‘much milk’, as the ancient Greeks believed it increased milk production in cattle. In many languages it is known as the milk flower. In the exhibition, ‘much milk’ refers to art that enriches life. Polygala Biennale consists of new and old works exploring nature, its uncanniness and representations.

Andrea Coyotzi Borja and Anna Jensen’s ongoing How to Life project explores the uncanniness of the world through artistic research. In the video Bad Methodologies: Peculiar Frog, Coyotzi Borja and Jensen test the limits of physical control. Drawing from the deepest recesses of the sea and humour, Anna Pekkala’s works are on a scale similar to the marine life and Elasmobranchii on display at the museum. Tereza Holubová’s installations look at the human-animal relationships and the tension between ugliness and beauty through experimental and diverse materials. Teresa Kari’s work brings together living and dead matter and fragile, nascent knowledge. Mette Matilda’s ceramics and wax works move between the natural and the artificial, the real and the imagined, the living and the inanimate. Raimo Saarinen works with plants, soil and water, and is particularly interested in the Western concept of nature and its effects on plants and ecosystems. Photographer Emma Suominen’s portraits of stuffed animals selected from the museum’s collections bring out the individuality of the animals in a touching way. Illustrator and visual artist Juliana Hyrri has created a visual identity for the exhibition in which nature, in all its beauty and strangeness, curls up into letters.

Polygala Biennale – Plants, Animals and Things In-between has been organised and realised in collaboration with the Finnish Museum of Natural History (Luomus) and supported by the Kone Foundation.

Natural History Museum
Pohjoinen Rautatiekatu 13
00100 Helsinki