Care_worry_planning_responsibility_work_generations_knowledge

INFO

SAARA HALMINEN they/them
Helsinki, Finland

Born 2003

inquiries:
saara.halminen@gmail.com

Halminen (b. 2003, Oulu) is a multimedia artist based in Helsinki, Finland. Currently studying painting in the Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki, they work across various media, including installation, video, sculpting, 3D, and graphic art. Still mostly focusing on the long background in oil painting, their work is affected by the eyes of a painter.

Currently, Halminen is working with themes around queer worldbuilding, psychoanalysis and combining these two very broad perspectives in concepts of pleasure and art practice itself. Pleasure has been central to their thinking almost violently. Focusing on pleasure in daily life almost obsessively reveals liminalities and a demand for movement and constant transformation.

During the last year (2025), Halminen has been working as an artist and project manager in a long-term production for Oulu 2026 - European Capital of Culture. Halminen has been temporarily studying at the Academy of Fine Art Prague in 2025. Their works have been exhibited in Oulu and Helsinki, and they are currently working on their BA exhibition, taking place in August 2026.

CV

Care_worry_planning_responsibility_work_generations_knowledge, 2024

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Saara halminen
Care_worry_planning_responsibility_work_generations_knowledge, 2024

oil on canvas, video projector, video

duration: 15min

This video is a part of an installation consisting of videoprojector laying on the floor, oilpainting put on top of it and a videowork.

The video documents me and other white female-presenting people doing continuous reproductive work on a family holiday in Italy. Video has been separated to themes that are questioning the relationships, needs and responsibilities in the kitchen. The video involves two separate narratives. The first narrative looks at the situation from a white feminist perspective to see the woman's role. It only represents a very privileged minority, with time and resources to criticise the gender roles.

The second narrative comes from the projector that represents a gaze. The work is happening in a fantasy teknoreality, where the painting gives the projector an ability: an error identification method analysis. The painting (error identification method) reflects an imaginary technology that has been made to analyse information (video). Method's mission is to recognize social structures and criticize them. It is an art tool that is interested in information given as the truth.

The error identification method (on the left corner in the video) is searching the video with the viewer creating another narrative. It brings out a composition, where labour done by women can be seen as oppression, patriarchal and enabler of capitalism. The work asks, from what position is work defined or demanded payment for? Who can need rest? Does labour's fair distribution mean measuring and capitalising of care? What kind of communities are we then constructing?