Yael Bartana / True Finn
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True Finn is a documentary style film asking eight people from Finland one simple question – who is a true Finn? Invited by and working in connection with Finland’s Pro Arte Foundation, Bartana’s objective with True Finn was to create and record an utopian moment that would yield an answer to this question.

As a result of an open call, eight Finnish-residents came to live together for seven days in a house in the countryside. The condition was that each person had a different ethnic, religious, and political background. Life, discussions, and specifically designed assignments were filmed, with the edited material forming the core of the artwork.

True Finn probes questions about identity, nationhood, and belonging. These themes have always been central to Bartana’s practice: how does national identity operate as a means of inclusion and exclusion? What happens when these people live together for a week with the sole purpose to re-define Finnishness, their own selves, and their relationship to others? What are we talking about when we talk about national identity? Can an immigrant truly shed their identity?