Wet
as in bodily fluids, sexual secretions, sweat that drips down your back when sitting in the archives, reading about your ancestors, at some point the sweat turns into tears
as in how fragile Western, paper-based documents are, how easily they could be turned into moist, unreadable mush, destroying the violent structures they hold up
as in the histories that the land holds, rivers and landmarks, cities and streets as our archives, redefining and expanding the term, seeing the histories and stories that are hidden in plain sight
as a force of change.
What is seen as a source of information, and what is not? Why are documents written by outside scholars studying minorities defined as belonging to archives, but not the lands, waters and garments that have absorbed knowledge over the centuries? The exhibition delves into the archives in an attempt to strive out of the Western definition of archiving, which carries with it the ghosts of the oppressor’s gaze, research, exoticism and violence.
In what other ways could we define the concepts of archives and history? History lives everywhere, and archives spread in everything we leave our mark in. The title of the exhibition emphasises the embodied nature of archives, referring to wetness, which can mean the secretions of the human body, documents soaked beyond legibility, or bodies of water that preserve knowledge.
The exhibition is part of the gallery’s 2025-26 program called Textures of Security, which has been curated through an open call by the museum’s curatorial team and invited curator Farbod Fakharzadeh, and supported by Finnish Heritage Agency and Arts Promotion Centre Finland.
The Finnish Museum of Photography
Basement floor
The Cable Factory, Kaapeliaukio 3, Helsinki
