During the 90’s, Arthur Aron developed “The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings” as part of a study on empathy and interpersonal relationships. By submitting a questionnaire to two strangers, sitting opposite each other for 60-90 minutes, the American psychologist sought to create closeness between different people.

“Intimacy” is derived from the research of Aron, and while it follows the framework and method of the original study, the questions and the setting have been modified. The piece invites the public to have this experience in using the art context as the backdrop. Intimacy follows Nikkanen’s research on the notions of intimacy and empathy, and include a sound environment composed by River Yarra.

The duration of the experience is 60 minutes.

The composition of River Yarra can be listened through this link.

HAVE/NEED Forum is an annual, independent, multi-disciplinary event that hosts a series of exchanges between designers, thinkers, makers and artists. The event creates a physical meeting point to collectively learn, share ideas, and construct alternative narratives through the extended practices of art, design, research, and philosophy. HAVE/NEED Forum was constructed in four threads, each of them presenting a new topic of conversation.

The 2023 edition featured Emanuele Coccia, Ruby Hoette, l’Idiot Utile magazine, Gabriel Figueiredo, Flora Bouteille with the Ethics Angels Company, and River Yarra.

Listen River Yarra's composition through the link © Super Utu 2023

"What’s your long-term goal in life?" was conceived as an architectural installation that secludes the main exhibition space from the rest of the building. The piece acts as a passage both in the physical and mental sense: it directs and restricts the entry to the space. It is a gesture that attempts to build a bridge between the artist's inner world and the collective subconscious.

With: Dora García, Cally Spooner, Pierre Bal-Blanc, Nora Sternfeld, Virginie Bobin, Flora Bouteille, Vir Andrés Hera, Myriam Lefkowitz, and Aapo Nikkanen.

Curated by Bureau d’Études en Perfomances.

Some believe that the origin of our being is a union with a gentle emptiness. A mindless and effortless slide, into a place where the inner and outer worlds meet. Yet we find ourselves trying to maintain balance on a chaotic patchwork of infinite objects and desires, trying not to fall into one of the gaps in between. We focus to forget, not to remember, in a primal effort to maintain a sense of the world. In this reality, goosebumps come wrapped in cellophane and people swipe their fingers all over your face.

Duo exhibition with Pepo Salazar.

Joy of Living, Fear of Dying is the first of a series of works that deal with the notions of intimacy and empathy through fundamental psychological questions. “Fundamental” has in the last week started to drag a heavy weight with it, and maybe it's a good moment to focus on things that are less aestheticized, less trying to inspire us to always "become", and more concerned about what we already are.

The exhibition coincided with Russia’s attack on Ukraine.

Curated by Kaspars Grosevs.

"My Instagram Persona" explores how social media creates new types of intimacy and shapes the dynamics between public and private. For his work, Nikkanen went through the data that Instagram had saved on him and discovered a consumer persona made up of hundreds of different classifications. This list turned into an installation that visualizes the profile that Instagram’s artificial intelligence has created on Nikkanen.

For his exhibition in Open, Nikkanen not only portrays the feelings of dissociation from society and nature, but also looks for alternatives. A used garment can become material for a wearable artwork, and a severed arm turned into a candle holder becomes something not only somber, but can also symbolize for a new start.

Listen Care Fully was an exhibition, installation and event taking its initial inspiration from Japanese listening bars. Listening bars in Japan are institutions that are somewhere in-between a bar, the owners living room and a communal space. They feature high-end sound systems and usually grant the people playing complete liberty to play any kind of music they wish, thus creating a space where music that doesn’t fit the usual gigs or venues can be enjoyed from a high-fidelity sound system.

Imagined and curated by Aapo Nikkanen.

Jung Thug is a series of 13 garments based on the teachings and ideas of the 20th century psychologist Carl Gustav Jung, presented in a circular installation that consists of bespoke structures and domestic furniture. The piece could be seen as an act of popularising knowledge in a (very personal) space that’s generally reserved only for advertisements, brand logos and fashion consumerism, or, as re-contextualising fashion to the domain of arts, thus introducing it to new meaningful concepts and contents.

Shanzhai was commissioned by the Slate Projects London and The Community Paris. The work is based on a voyage to Thames Town just outside of Shanghai, which is a stunningly accurate simulacrum village depicting London townhouse architecture.

The installation presented in Slate Projects in London featured a 1:1 copy of our accommodation in Thames Town and a video piece produced together with Jussi Kantonen. Throughout the exhibition, the visitors were given the chance to book a night to sleep in the installation.

Solar Walkman is a series of collaborative publications dealing with different aspects of production and consumption. For each number, a different photographer is invited to react to the selected concept or location.

The first edition, titled "IKEA", was produced together with photographer Osma Harvilahti, who was given two disposable cameras to document inside the Ikea of Villiers-sur-Marne, located in the Parisian suburbs.

The publication was produced as an edition of 36 copies, equaling the number of frames in a film roll. The next edition is scheduled to be published in spring 2024.

Design of four stamps about Helsinki for the French Post Office.

A surf magazine produced together with Jussi Kantonen.

1st and 2nd editions published in 2019.

>be me - a collection of greentexts is a curious collection of short stories from the biggest outsider website in the world. The book gives an exceptional insight into a young man’s psyche thanks to the veil of anonymity and the anarchic nature of 4chan. It is an unfiltered collection of all the things that make life so profoundly hilarious, heartbreaking and obnoxious, written in an oddly poetic language conceived by the 27 million monthly users of 4chan.org.

Shortly after being released, >be me - a collection of greentexts reached first place in the top 100 listings of its Amazon category, and it has been a subject of notable attention and cult following since. Several articles have been written about the project and it continues to be presented in different forms in exhibitions and events at regular intervals. Among others, it has been featured in Dis Magazine, Art Papers, oFluxo, the International Film Festival of Rotterdam and the Libros Mutantes Art Book Fair in Madrid.