The Journey Home 150 x 105cm, All Again 61 x 50 cm, oil on canvas
Installation view, Solo exhibition Bystander at Reflector Neukölln, Berlin
Bystander 145 x 110 cm, oil on canvas
Bystander
Reflektor Neukölln, Berlin, 31.5-9.6 2026
Anita Naukkarinen’s exhibition Bystander invites the viewer to step into the layered complexities of human existence. Comprising paintings and music the exhibition traces the later stages of life and evokes the experiential world of those living with serious illness.
The works presented in the exhibition are informed by a research project examining the role of bibliotherapy in palliative care conducted by the University of Eastern Finland and Kuopio University Hospital. Conversations with the project’s researchers, alongside texts written by patients through bibliotherapy, have guided the artistic process and laid the foundation for the works presented.
Naukkarinen approaches the subject through painting. The exhibition brings together a series of landscape-like paintings that have emerged in response to the theme. Their gestures and visual language are formed through layers, traces, and movements that unfold gently. The paintings propose spaces, without attempting to offer explanations, lingering in moments marked by a quiet sense of fragility. The inner and physical world of an individual moving toward the end of life, the lightness and gravity of existence, the immediacy of lived reality and even a gentle humor addressed to death itself, all chart a path for the paintings.
The exhibition reflects on how the final stage of life may involve a sense of loss of dignity and human worth, as worsening symptoms increase fragility and dependence on others. In the eyes of the surrounding community, the individual may easily become merely the object of care. A sense of self diminishes, and agency is sidelined as declining functionality increasingly confines the patient, alongside medical care, to restricted spaces, ultimately often within walls and away from others.
The exhibition includes compositions by Anna-Riikka Vehviläinen (Anis Kiitu), who has contributed to the bibliotherapy research project as both researcher and oncologist, bringing a perspective that intertwines artistic and scientific inquiry. The music approaches the subject in a layered form, lingering at the edges of patients’ experiential worlds, giving voice to the unspoken.
Moving at the intersection of art and research, the exhibition Bystander circles the theme from multiple perspectives tracing the marks of those moving toward the end of life and gently winding the thread of existence into a coil.
The artist’s work is supported by the Alfred Kordelin Foundation.