The Sunshine Family

-on exhibition in Tampere Maja Gallery 25. April to 19. May 2024.

The same family was originally named family Dark. But when darkness itself settled over the World, they found out they had to do something to survive. They couldn’t just let the darkness and fear engulf them. But there’s the thing about darkness, it can paralyze people, just like a deer caught in the headlights of a car. It stiffens and becomes paralyzed, and risks being wiped out.

The family Dark realized that they had to find a tool, that could withstand the darkness. It quickly dawned on them that that tool was the Light! Keeping the light in themselves would save them, and perhaps even in the long run also their surroundings.

They decided that their survival should be the light. Not meant as the Divine Light, but in the form of the preservation of common sense, facts, experiences and knowledge. The belief in freedom and own abilities. Resistance and the ability to see through manipulation and lies. The freedom to speak and live according to one’s own opinion. The tool for the former family Dark. became the light, and the family decided to mark their now reinforced survival instinct with a name change to: The Sunshine Family.

I was raised in perhaps the greatest freedom the world has ever seen. It was so unfortunately different here in Esto nia at the same time. It’s probably because of that fact, people here are now much more vigilant about protecting freedom today, than for example they are in Denmark. There you take it for granted and believe nothing can remove the freedom. But it happens anyway. Via the ”salami method” – a thin slice is eaten every day. It is not noticed that the sausage is getting smaller, yet it is gone one day.