New series of work under the title Embrace Your Empathy! will be a prelude to Gustafsson&Haapoja’s new project Museum of Non-Humanity. The museum focuses on the history of dehumanization and will open in the Suvilahti area’s – where Flow is also held – Tiivistämö building starting September 1st.

Gustafsson&Haapoja will create an utopia of a world that is characterised by equality between humans and other animals, and where the ability to empathise has been raised as a central value. This utopia is located in the near future, where resources are few, but interspecies communication is commonplace. Large scale media works appropriate the visual aesthetics of advertisements while inviting Flow Festival visitors to imagine a world in which public spaces are saturated with statements that reinforce togetherness and mutual acceptance – instead of ones focused on the abuse of nature and other people. Embrace Your Empathy! has been inspired by Philip K. Dick’s science fiction classic Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and the dystopian reality it inspired in the film Blade Runner.

The arts programme of Flow will include a wide variety of art in addition to that of the Visual Artists of the Year – more information will follow during the spring. Flow Festival’s arts offering has been curated together with the programme’s main partner University of the Arts Helsinki. Laura Gustafsson has graduated from Theatre Academy and Terike Haapoja from Academy of Fine Arts as well as from Theatre Academy.

Flow Festival is a leading European music and arts boutique festival taking place in a historic power plant area in the capital of Finland, Helsinki. 2016 programme includes Massive Attack, SIA, Kamasi Washington and many others.