Terike Haapoja

Terike Haapoja is an interdisciplinary visual artist based in Brooklyn. Her large scale installations, writings, and collaborations explore the possibility of nonviolent coexistence across differences, with a specific focus on multispecies politics. Often appropriating an institutional form like a political party, a museum, or a court, the projects critique the anthropocentrism of Western worldview and probe for alternative modes of living together. Works by Gustafsson&Haapoja, a collaboration with author Laura Gustafsson, include Museum of Nonhumanity, an utopian museum for the victims of the human-animal boundary; the video installation Becoming that explores emergent, more sustainable ways of being human; and Museum of the History of Cattle, that presents world history from the perspective of cattle, one of our most important companion species. While rooted in environmental thought and drawing from critical animal studies and posthumanism, Haapoja’s work is in dialogue with intersectional feminist and post-colonial discourses, critically reflecting on structures of exclusion and power that emerge from Western traditions. Haapoja represented Finland in the 55th Venice Biennale with a solo show in the Nordic Pavilion, and her work has been exhibited widely in solo and group shows internationally.