Vera’s exhibition If not me, then who? is a cross-section of the artist’s works from 1977-2023. In her deeply personal works, Vera has documented the life of Chilean refugees in Finland and at the same time described her own experience of the difficulty of integrating into Finland.
The exhibition is a treatise on the power structures that define humanity. In her works, Vera discusses, among other things, the consequences of the colonialist movement, different citizenships, and immigration and movement. What is it like, for example, to be a refugee and immigrant forced to move, a target of the use of power? At the same time, Vera also examines herself as a photographer and the power associated with it. When photographing, the artist is an active user of power and the subject turns into an object.
Changing the perspective from individual to society, from person to humanity and from self to another, Vera asks the viewer and herself the same question again and again: if I do this, how will it affect the world – and if I don’t do something, then who will?
Adolfo Vera (b. 1955) is a Finnish photo artist born in Chile who lives and works in Vantaa
