Unknown Cargo, as the name would suggest, is an art exhibition founded on mystery. The idea is this: you attend the show, but to prevent the audience’s experience of the art being prejudiced by preconceptions, the artist’s identity is only revealed at the exhibition’s end. The first Unknown Cargo show was held in Helsinki in 2011 (in an old cargo container, hence the name) and then moved to various sites around the city. Now it’s expanding to the rest of Scandinavia, with exhibitions opening in Stockholm and Copenhagen this autumn. Sanna Lipponen, one of Unknown Cargo’s organisers along with Laura Porola and Timo Wright, says that the fair treatment of artists is also an important aspect of the exhibition’s philosophy: “Even though Unknown Cargo is a non-profit gallery, we feel that the artists deserve their wages. For this reason we never ask the artists for rent for the exhibition space; on the contrary, we support them by paying a fee for the exhibition and we participate in other expenses as well”. Unknown Cargo will feature a mixture of local and Finnish artists and runs to October 16th.
Curators: Sanna Lipponen, Laura Porola and Timo Wright.
Unknown Cargo, Snickarbacken 2-4, Aug 20-Oct 16.
