The Sybir Memorial Museum will host Juhana Moisander, a respected Finnish visual artist and one of four participants in the international project Art of Remembrance. This initiative, conducted at four historically significant sites of memory across Europe — in Belgium, France, Italy, and Poland — aims to reinterpret the history of World War II through the lens of contemporary art.
Over the course of eight weeks, the participating artists will explore the historical and social contexts of these memory sites. The results of their work will be presented in a mobile exhibition touring various European cities in 2026, promoting dialogue between the past and the present.
More information is available on the webiste of the Art of Remembrance project.
Juhana Moisander will visit Białystok twice: in the second half of July and again in the autumn of 2025. During his artist residency within the Art of Remembrance framework, he will become familiar with the museum’s activities, explore the permanent exhibition, and engage in conversations with local residents. On this occasion, we warmly invite you to an open meeting with the artist, which will take place on July 22, 2025, at 5:00 p.m. at the Sybir Memorial Museum.
The artist will present his art, which blends history, emotion, and contemporary forms of expression into immersive installations. He will speak about his inspirations, creative methods, and the vision behind the piece he is creating during his residency. The event is open to all those interested in contemporary art, history, and intercultural dialogue. It is a unique opportunity to discover how art can breathe life into sites of remembrance and connect generations.
Participants will explore the concept of site-specific art – art intrinsically tied to a particular place, its history, space, and memory. The artist will reflect on the role of song in the experience of deportation, war, and daily survival. The meeting will offer an opportunity to discuss how singing – as an act of resistance, belonging, and hope – can inspire contemporary art.
Attendees will also visit part of the permanent exhibition to discover artworks created by Sybiraks under extreme conditions – in secrecy, with limited access to materials, and often in defiance of bans and repression. These works were not only forms of expression but also tools for survival, building community, and preserving identity.
Venue: The Sybir Memorial Museum, audiovisual room
Date: July 22, 2025
Time: 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Juhana Moisander (b. 1977) is an artist living and working in Karkkila, Finland. He studied fine arts at the Tampere University of Applied Sciences and later earned his Master’s degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki. His works — often dark in both theme and palette — combine video, sound, and sculptural elements to create cohesive installations that resonate with the architecture of the exhibition space. He draws inspiration from art history, literature, mythology, and human behavior. His works have been exhibited in Finland, including at EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art (Espoo, Finland), as well as internationally, such as at the Mikkel Museum (Tallinn, Estonia).
