Exhibitor: Teo Ala-Ruona and collaborators

Curated by Kaisa Karvinen

Commissioned by Architecture & Design Museum Helsinki (Finland)
with The National Museum of Norway and ArkDes (Sweden)

 

Local consultant and exhibition production
Pavilion manager

 

Industry Muscle continues Teo Ala-Ruona’s work on trans embodiment and ecology, expanding his focus into architecture.

 Can performance art expose architecture’s relationship with the body?

Industry Muscle considers the trans body as a lens through which to examine modern architecture and the built environment, establishing a dialogue with the celebrated architecture of the Nordic Countries Pavilion, designed by Sverre Fehn and completed in 1962. By contrasting Fehn’s canonical work of modernism against an alternative model for architectural practice that takes the trans body as its starting point, the exhibition will offer insights into the relationships between architecture, the body, and ecological collapse.

 

“Sverre Fehn’s Nordic Countries Pavilion is a canonical work of modernist architecture that provides the perfect setting for Teo Ala-Ruona, an artist whose practice deals with the materiality of bodies and ecological questions. Combining Ala-Ruona’s practice with the architecture of the pavilion provides new insights about our built environment more generally, from the perspective of how the image of the body in fossil fuel-based culture has influenced architecture.”

– The curator

 

In Industry Muscle the audience is invited to consider the Nordic Pavilion, as well as architecture more broadly, as a stage for sociopolitical norms that are embedded in fossil-based culture. The staging of the exhibition places the visitor at the centre of an architectural experience where all participants are on display, enacting everyday performances. In Ala-Ruona’s interventions, the trans body crowbars its way into this structure and reveals the blueprint within.

 

 

Teo Ala-Ruona works at the intersection of performance art, theatre and choreography, with a focus on trans embodiment and ecology. For Industry Muscle, he has assembled a multidisciplinary team of collaborators including architect A.L. Hu, set designer and artist Teo Paaer, sound designer Tuukka Haapakorpi, dramaturge Even Minn, visual artist Venla Helenius, fashion designer Ervin Latimer, graphic designer Kiia Beilinson and performers Kid Kokko, Caroline Suinner, and Romeo Roxman Gatt.

Collaboration plays a central role in Ala-Ruona’s work. Each member of the working group contributes their own artistic part to the exhibition.

 

“Industry Muscle proposes a model for architecture grounded in my artistic practice and experience as both a trans person and a performance maker who uses the body as a site of research. This can be as fundamental as creating a sense of comfort in a space that doesn’t highlight the silhouette of the body, but instead offers an adaptive environment. This stands in contrast to the modernist ideal of reduction, which is also reflected in the architecture of the pavilion.”

– The artist

 

Find out more about the exhibition: www.designmuseum.fi

 

Photo credits: Teo Ala Ruona, Industry Muscle, Nordic Pavilion, Biennale Architettura 2025
Installation views: Ph © Ugo Carmeni
Performance: Ph © Venla Helenius