Kiasma: Camouflage

At Helsinki's Kiasma, Museum of Contemporary Art, the new exhibition Camouflage: Visual Art and Design in Disguise merges contemporary art and design, redefining their boundaries through a variety of media, including sculpture, design, installation and photography.

"The purpose of camouflage is to disguise the object so as to make it more difficult to perceive," states curator Leevi Haapala. "Instead of covering up, camouflage conceals by revealing. In the Camouflage exhibition contemporary art and design are concealed by and in one another."

Both camps feel attracted to the ideas and practices of the other, yet they frequently try to preserve the dividing lines. With their actions, works, active discussion and concept definition, designers and artists alike have opened the intersecting area in interesting new directions. Here, the relationships between art and design are celebrated and revealed through experimental works by a broad assortment of artists and designers.

The Camouflage exhibition focuses on how designers and artists work when they filter impulses, process ideas, and seek a direction for their work. The works presented here are suggestions, discoveries and carefully aimed provocations that hint at the authors' future work in relation to the ongoing discussion on the topic. The 19 artists, designers, duos and collectives live in different parts of the world. In addition to Finland, they come from Argentina, Great Britain, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States. Many of them work between two or more cities and cultures. They come from a range of cross-disciplinary backgrounds, and their evolving projects provide them with changing professions and identities. The exhibition is presented in conjunction with the World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 programme.

Through 7 October 2012
Camouflage: Visual Art and Design in Disguise
Kiasma, Museum of Contemporary Art
Helsinki