The exhibition presents photo-collages and videos from Under the Bridge-Helsinki, a project created to generate new proposals directed towards solving the dire housing problems faced by migrant workers.

The Housing Agenda presents works which have resulted from artistic research in the field and in the institutions which deal with questions surrounding Roma migrant workers in Finland. This included a final public debate with leading actors surrounding the issues. The debate was staged in Ateneum Art Museum in September 2011 and organized by Vladan Jeremić and Rena Rädle. The central idea was to generate creative proposals directed towards solving the highly complex and urgent housing problems of Roma and other precarious migrant workers in Europe. The contributing participants of the conference issued and distributed the resulting proposals in the form of “The Helsinki Housing Manifesto”. This manifesto proposes the idea of a trans-urban network of “migrants hotels” in European cities, for use by Roma precarious migrant workers, and outlines a set of common principles for local housing solutions to be developed with the support of the EU. The debate was part of a long-term project dealing with the violent evictions of Roma, and the problems of residential racism in Europe.

Continuing their previous work on the elaboration of an agenda for the housing of precarious migrant workers in European cities, Vladan Jeremić and Rena Rädle initiated their research on the situation of Roma migrant workers in Helsinki during their stays as artists at the X-OP residency in 2010 and at their HIAP residency in 2011.

In the course of the project numerous activists, workers, artists, theorists and politicians from Finland, UK, Germany and Serbia participated in working groups and debates and contributed to the research and the proposals which have issued from it. “The Helsinki Housing Manifesto” was presented to a high-level EU conference on Roma issues in Brussels in November 2011.

The Housing Agenda -exhibition at Cable Gallery is curated and produced by HIAP as a part of the Paths Crossing project for new and applicant EU Member States. The project is funded by the Culture Programme of the European Union.

Rena Rädle and Vladan Jeremić are artists, curators and political activists based in Belgrade, Serbia. In their artistic practice they investigate the intersection between contemporary art and politics. Through understanding the situationist dérive in the urban landscape as a tool for identifying society‘s burning issues, they are developing an artistic method that combines artistic interventions in urban space, documentary video, photography and drawing. Their artistic research is currently focused on the meaning of modernist urbanism today, on emerging social movements, such as those for the emancipation of Roma in Europe, and on the possibilities of a leftist antifascist practice of remembrance. They have been working together as an artist duo since 2002. They are founders of Biro Beograd, an association that provides a platform for critical practice that goes beyond conventional forms of contemporary art, cultural and social research, and activism.

The exhibition is a part of the Helsinki Photography Biennial 2012 programme.

Curated by Marita Muukkonen.

Further information: Marita Muukkonen, marita(at)hiap.fi