Part of the multidisciplinary work for the Pavilion of Finland at the 60th Venice Biennale.
Comissioned by Frame Contemporary Art Finland.

Technical execution: Niko Rissanen

A wheelchair decorated with sequins and fringes, doing somersaults on the ceiling, refuses to listen the hate speech of ableist social and healthcare workers and just does what it wants. Ableism is most dangerous to non-disabled people and those in power, because it doesn’t teach them to trust that life is good and dreams can be fulfilled even when one’s way of functioning changes.

According to a joint study conducted by Harvard Medical School and other universities, 82 % of American physicians believe that people with disabilities have a worse quality of life than nondisabled people. Physicians, of whom a smaller percentage than the general population have disabilities, assumed that their knowledge of diseases increases their ability to assess the quality of life of people with disabilities. However, the study showed that people with disabilities often receive inferior care. Many surgeons assume, for example, that women with breast cancer who use wheel chairs want a mastectomy instead of a breast-conserving surgery, believing that women with disabilities do not care about their appearance. (Read more)

Video from 1646 Experimental Art Space in Instagram.