Lokal Creators / Sasha Huber

Sasha Huber is a visual artist of Swiss-Haitian heritage. Born in Zurich, Switzerland, she currently lives and works in Helsinki, Finland. Huber’s work is primarily concerned with history’s influence on the present and focuses mainly on the ramifications of colonialism. She’s sensitive to the subtle threads that connect historical attitudes to modern outlooks,  and works with performance-based interventions, video, photography, publications, graphic design and archival material. We visited her studio as she was working on her new Star, Sun and Drop pieces for our Jewel exhibition, as well as her Tailoring Freedom series, exhibited at Autograph in London (’22–’23). We are very honoured and pleased to have been presenting her works for several years now, both in Helsinki and abroad, looking forward to the new stories and shared journey ahead.

Lokal Creators / Sasha Huber

Sasha Huber (b. 1975) is a visual artist of Swiss-Haitian heritage. Born in Zurich, Switzerland, she currently lives and works in Helsinki, Finland. Huber’s work is primarily concerned with history’s influence on the present and focuses mainly on the ramifications of colonialism. She’s sensitive to the subtle threads that connect historical attitudes to modern outlooks,  and works with performance-based interventions, video, photography, publications, graphic design and archival material. We visited her studio as she was working on her new Star, Sun and Drop pieces for our Jewel exhibition, as well as her Tailoring Freedom series, exhibited at Autograph in London (’22–’23). We are very honoured and pleased to have been presenting her works for several years now, both in Helsinki and abroad, looking forward to the new stories and shared journey ahead.

“I am originally from Zurich, and I’ve lived in Finland since twenty years now, and it is here that I started my artistic career during my studies. It is during those studies that I discovered the staple gun for myself, and immediately realised that it is like a weapon. The weight and sound, and the fact that I had to protect my ears, and eyes as well, reminded me very much of a weapon. I realised that I would like to use this when it somehow relates to this symbolic meaning. 

I can discuss issues that I am interested about, and at the beginning, it was a lot about my mother’s heritage, or where my mother comes from, which is Haiti. And so the stapling, as a methodology, changed from shooting to becoming more of a stitching of the colonial wound. And rather, to tell stories of people that were silenced in history, or have not been remembered, and to use my energy more for highlighting those histories. 

More recently I started to work with colour, and I had this urge to make works that are relating to my relationship to water, and the different histories around this ever-moving element. Water that is also covering most of the world – we are made of water. I also often relate working like this as a starting point for how I started to make my work, and I will speak about it being a seed that I planted at the time, where I put my heart into, and things started to grow, from there.” – Sasha Huber

Shop: Sasha Huber’s Works

Explore: Lokal Creators

Lokal Creators / Saija Starr

Saija Starr is a painter living in Helsinki. Recent works depict nature and human nature, memories and memories of places that have left a strong trace in memory. Starr’s painting style is expressive, and colours play a most important role.We visited her studio just as the last coat of paint was drying on her pieces to be included in her Lokal White Wall exhibition, Tranquility.

Lokal Creators / Akiko Mori

Akiko Mori was born in Japan and studied sculpture at Art University in Tokyo. In 2022 she opened her new studio in Helsinki, which we visited to mark her Lokal White Wall exhibition, Geometric Spaces. She is interested in how physical properties, such as clay density and water content, affect the fluidity of the clay.

Lokal Creators / Benjamin Murphy

Benjamin Murphy, born in West Yorkshire, is a globally exhibiting visual artist. His current work explores themes of polarity, time, memory, and contrast – often rendered in charcoal on raw canvas. We visited his studio in Helsinki just before he set up his Lokal White Wall exhibition, Éanáir. 

Lokal Creators / Sini Villi

Sini Villi is a textile artist living and working in Helsinki, Finland. In her work Villi uses handmade ribbon to create three-dimensional textile reliefs and sculptures. We visited her Helsinki studio on a summer afternoon just after she’d set up her White Wall exhibition, Ammonites.