rice, fishline 33x33x270 cm
A rice “column” modelled after the Corinthian order of Finland’s Parliament House.
During my residency in Helsinki, I discovered promotional videos made by Kioski from 2018-2019 that used Japanese anime to encourage youth voting, for the parliamentary and presidential election, with Finnish candidates speaking Japanese subtitled in Finnish. In addition to this, the prevalence of “Japanese” restaurants in Helsinki run by Chinese immigrants, caught my attention. The above observations along with the phenomenon of “Japanese rice” grown in Italy under the guidance of a Japanese food company to save on transportation and import costs, and sold in the Asian Markets of Helsinki or used in local restaurants, led me to research on the routes of rice from the East to the West, and the role it plays in enhancing cultural fantasies locally.