Image: EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art
EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art is showing 'Axel Straschnoy: Uskomme ja hyväksymme näiden olentojen olemassaolon' from 15 April to 9 August 2026. The exhibition presents a multi-part, full-gallery installation and research project by artist and filmmaker Axel Straschnoy, who was born in 1978 and lives in Helsinki. EMMA describes the work as part of the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts’ prize exhibition programme.
The project focuses on posadism, a marginal political movement founded in the late 1950s by Argentine Trotskyist activist J. Posadas. According to EMMA’s exhibition text, Posadas argued that advanced communist civilizations exist in outer space and that contact with them could help create a new society on Earth, without poverty, hunger or war. The exhibition draws on that idea at a time marked, in the museum’s words, by deepening political, military and ecological crises.
Text excerpts from a speech Posadas published in 1968 structure the installation. EMMA says handwritten quotations recall both protest banners and oversized book pages, underscoring the power of printed language as a political tool. The exhibition’s videos combine sounds and references from space research, political history and ufology, creating what the museum calls a tense dialogue between different forms of knowledge and belief.
Straschnoy’s practice has long involved a range of techniques to examine the workings of science and art. EMMA says his long-term, multi-part projects encourage viewers to look at familiar phenomena in new ways. In this exhibition, the artist turns that method toward the limits of political imagination and scientific thought, asking visitors to consider futures organised around equality, abundance and freedom.
The museum notes that the exhibition is part of a prize awarded to Straschnoy by the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 2025. EMMA has produced the show in collaboration with the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts Foundation and the City of Espoo. The prize package includes the exhibition at EMMA and a publication funded by the museum, scheduled to appear in June.
The exhibition is on view on EMMA’s second floor, with admission listed at 20 euros for visitors over 29, 10 euros for discounted groups, and free entry for those under 18 and for Museum Card holders. EMMA also lists a mobile guide for the show, and an evening public tour on 7 August 2026. The museum says the work will remain on view through 9 August 2026.
