Are We There

In 1929 a group of Finns, including Jenni Toivonen’s great grandparents and their family, set out to Brazil to build a utopian community in the tropics. Their mission was to live in harmony with nature, separated from the capitalist society and to lead a life based on vegetarianism. Decades later, the artist grew up listening to melodies from Brazil, and this ambience led her to the old village which is nowadays surrounded by the memory of the utopian era. Are We There by Jenni Toivonen investigates migration, memory and the connection between human and nature. It reflects on history in today’s world, as well as about the concept of utopia and longing for something distant as a catalyst for human action. At the core of the work lies a performative journey to the old village, where she tries to build a connection with the past by re-imagining and reconstructing it. Through rituals that immerse the human body in its environment, Toivonen explores the questions of origin, belonging and coexistence.