International Women’s Day: Gallery explores role of female artists in building modern Finland

International Women’s Day is a UN initiative celebrated on 8 March, of every year. The theme of this year’s celebration is “Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow”, and a call for climate action for women, by women.

In her statement for International Women’s Day, UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous says: “Let us make this International Women’s Day a moment to recall that we have the answers not just for SDG 5 but, through the advancement of gender equality, for all 17 Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda 2030. I look forward to working with every one of you to that end. ”

Against the backdrop of the theme, the UN says the latest data available has improved the understanding of the vital link between gender, social equity, and climate change, and recognizes that without gender equality today, a sustainable future, an equal future, remains out of reach.

Women and girls experience the greatest impacts of the climate crisis as it amplifies existing gender inequalities and puts women’s lives and livelihoods at risk. Across the world, women depend more on, yet have less access to, natural resources, and often bear a disproportionate responsibility for securing food, water, and fuel.

As women and girls bear the burden of climate impacts, they are also essential to leading and driving change in climate adaption, mitigation, and solutions. Without the inclusion of half of the world’s population, it is unlikely that solutions for a sustainable planet and a gender-equal world tomorrow will be realized.

Last year, at the Generation Equality Forum, the Action Coalition for Feminist Action for Climate Justice was launched, bringing together governments, private sector companies, the UN system, and civil society in order to make concrete commitments toward climate justice. This International Women’s Day, the Action Coalition is helping drive global action and investment with a focus on financing for gender-just climate solutions, increasing women’s leadership in the green economy, building women’s and girl’s resilience to climate impacts and disasters, and increasing the use of data on gender equality and climate.

When picturing a Nordic woman the figure of Sanna Marin often comes to mind; Finland’s young prime minister has a pragmatic, down-to-earth style that reflects her country’s consensus politics.

Consistently ranked highly for parity between the sexes, four of the top five countries in the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Report 2021 are Scandinavian, earning the region a deserved reputation for gender equality.

However, despite their high equality ranking in contemporary society, the role of women in shaping these northern European states is often overlooked, until now.

“This nation-building involved using art and culture to create a new narrative and people right across Finnish society were involved,” says director at Ateneum, Marja Sakari.

Aided by funding and access to education, a group of largely upper-class women had traveled the salons and schools of Europe and brought back experimental styles to the newly formed country.

Hilda Flodin learned sculpture in Paris, Ellen Thesleff formed the Septem Group which introduced impressionism to Finland, and Helene Schjerfbeck developed her own modernist style.

Schjerbeck, Thesleff, and two other early artists Elga Sesemann and Sigrid Schauman formed the basis for the exhibition, which now showcases 12 outstanding female creators.

“These four women played a central, pioneering role in Finnish art history,” says senior researcher and exhibit curator Anu Utriainen.

Shying away from the dramatic Nordic landscapes which were typical of the male artists in the Finnish national art project, the women were able to embrace and highlight scenes and images of the modern woman.

Their works show city life, professional women, and cosmopolitan lifestyles.

Some of the exhibition shows early nudes painted by women after rules on life-modeling were changed in the 20th century; paintings that subvert the usual male gaze.

Many of the artists led what would have been considered ‘alternative’ lifestyles; working mothers, remaining unmarried, or choosing to be childless. This element of choice is important to the curators.

“They built their own images of themselves, followed their own strategies, and made their own life choices. They were not victims, they forged their own path,” Utriainen adds.

A report by the European Parliament in 2021 titled ‘Women in art and culture – Artists, not Muses,’ highlighted the ongoing work to uncover the importance of female-produced art which has remained hidden either by design or necessity.

Only 3 – 5 per cent689366_EN.pdf) of work in permanent art collections across Europe and the US is produced by women, with many female artists in history downgraded to hobbyists rather than professionals.

Excavation work is ongoing all over the world; the Venice Biennale is adopting a transhistorical approach to surrealist women, in the US there is a reexamination of the Jackson Pollock-dominated abstract movement, and the masculine German expressionists are also subject to a reevaluation.

So it is with ‘The Modern Woman,’ where pioneering women like early sculptor Hilda Flodin and graphic artist Lea Ignatiu, often overlooked in favour of men, are given their rightful place.

“I think now there is a shift away from the old modernist paradigm which has been very male-dominated,” says Utriainen.

“But it’s not just about Finnish women… it’s an international conversation.”

The irony present in the exhibition is that the outsider status of the women in 20th century Finland is what allowed them to be so experimental; free from the pressure placed on male artists by the establishment they were able to go their own way.

“Women had more restrictions in their daily lives but conversely more creative freedom when it came to their art,” says Utriainen.

However, it shouldn’t be understated that despite their freedom, these women still often go unobserved. Nor in the present day does the famous Finnish gender parity stretch to every part of the art world.

“There’s still a lot of work to be done,” says Sakari.

“Women remain dramatically underrepresented and undervalued by museums, galleries, and auction houses.”

‘The Modern Woman’ is finding its home in Ateneum after a world tour that included stops in Tokyo, New York, and several Baltic and Scandinavian nations.

In every place, it visited the exhibit highlighted the culturally specific role of women and stimulated conversations on gender.

“It really felt like an opportune moment for us to be highlighting these issues,” says Utriainen.

Indeed, the culture war backlash in many states in Europe (and elsewhere) gives ‘The Modern Woman’ even more relevance.

Even in progressive Finland, the far-right Finns party came second in the 2019 election with just over 17 percent of the vote.

“In many countries around the world there are people that are trying to roll back hard-won rights for women – particularly reproductive rights,” says Utriainen

“It’s important to continue to give women opportunities and support.”

Likewise, the significance of an exhibition celebrating female nation-builders in a formerly Russified country, which maintained strategic neutrality throughout the cold war, cannot be missed in the current geopolitical climate.

One artist exhibited, Elga Sesemann, fled the city of Viipuri for Helsinki after the Soviets took control in World War Two. Meanwhile, Helmi Kuusi, who fought in the women’s auxiliary organisation Lotta Svärd, spent the same period depicting war-torn landscapes.

While the image of a Nordic woman today is likely to resemble Sanna Marin, the need to excavate strong role models from history is essential and it is part and parcel of the work at Ateneum.

It’s a mission that both Sakari and Utriainen take very seriously.

“I have become more staunch feminist during this process because I’ve seen there is so much more to be done and so many great female artists to be discovered,” says Utriainen.