SÍM

Gallerie Käytävä
Helsinki

20 April – 10 June 2026

This exhibition brings together works by Rúrí that explore the fragile relationship between
humans, water, and a rapidly changing planet. Rúrí’s practice moves between documentation,
speculation, and poetic reflection. Her work addresses not only ecological disruption, but also
time, space, and human existence within larger cosmic systems. Through photography,
mapping, installation, and performance, she invites viewers to reconsider their relationship to
nature and their responsibility toward future generations.

Future Cartography unfolds in - large-scale hand-drawn maps, where present shorelines
dissolve into speculative futures, revealing a world reshaped by melting ice and rising seas.
Coastlines shift, borders blur, and what once seemed fixed becomes uncertain. In Elimination II,
a series of photographs traces the absence of waterfalls in the Icelandic highlands sites where
water once moved freely, now silenced or submerged. Across the exhibition, Rúrí reflects on
the enduring marks humans leave upon nature, especially on water: measured, redirected,
contained. These works linger in the space between presence and loss, asking us to consider
not only what is changing, but what is already gone.

Rúrí (b. 1951) is widely recognised as a pioneering figure in contemporary art, known for her
multidisciplinary practice spanning installation, performance, photography, and new media.
Emerging in the early 1970s as part of a generation that challenged established conventions in
Icelandic art, she quickly established herself as a distinctive and uncompromising voice. Over the
decades, her work has consistently engaged with urgent questions surrounding human rights,
environmental change, and the future of life on Earth. Combining conceptual precision with
poetic intensity, Rúrí creates works that address political conflict, cultural identity, and ecological
fragility, positioning art as a space for critical reflection and awareness. Rúrí has exhibited
extensively across Europe, North America, and Asia, in major institutions as well as independent
spaces, and her works are held in significant public and private collections. Her recent works
continue to expand her long-standing concerns into speculative futures, exploring how climate
change reshapes coastlines, geographies, and our understanding of place, belonging, and
responsibility in a rapidly transforming world.