Dividual Individual

Dividual Individual discusses racial biology and the research and educational work that the Florin Committee – currently Folkhälsan i Finland – carried out in the Swedish speaking regions in Finland. In 1914, the entire population of Malax was examined, and athropological skull measurements were taken of all people aged 25-40. These measurements sought to identify which fraction of the population belonged to the long-skulled Germanic or Nordic race and which to the short-skulled races such as the Finnish and East Baltic peoples. It is probable that the artist’s great grandparents were subjected to the measurements. The 5-channel installation’s video footage mainly consists of both Finnish and Swedish portrait archives. Butterflies accentuate the installation: The first professor of genetics in Finland and the secretary of the Florin Committee, Harry Federley, was a world-renowned zoologist and lepidopterist - but also an avid supporter of eugenics.