 |
| Sonya Lindfors and working group, ‘camouflage’ (2021), Stoa Helsinki. Foto: Katri Naukkarinen. |
Sonya Lindfors and working group’s ‘camouflage’ (2021) contains props, gestures, dialogues and citations that make us laugh, but not always comfortably. Problematising the gaze, it taunts audiences with imagery that turns on culturally-engrained tropes, prompting me to ask: who is humouring whom?
Sonya Lindfors is a Cameroonian-Finnish choreographer and an educator. Berlin art audiences might know her as part of the Miracle Workers Collective, a transdisciplinary, “anational” community who formed for the Finnish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2019, curated by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung. In Finland, Lindfors is a significant force. She has amassed accolades and is something of a role model for a generation of artists, activists and intellectuals grappling with issues of race, gender and multiculturalism. Following on from the lauded ‘COSMIC LATTE’ (2018), ‘camouflage’ has languished in a Covid-induced limbo for a year. So it’s no surprise to find a sold out crowd gathered for its much-anticipated premiere at the theatre doors of Stoa, East Helsinki’s notable community cultural centre.