HELSINKI.- In late May, the equestrian statue of Marshal Mannerheim will get new neighbours when a group of 11 bronze women and children are permanently installed in the pool in front of the Kiasma outdoor café. Nina Beier’s Women & Children (2022) is composed of found bronze sculptures, with water streaming from their eyes. The work was acquired for the Finnish National Gallery’s collection and will be on display from 30 May.

The individual sculptures date from different periods and represent different styles. All figures are nude, in keeping with the Western art-historical convention of depicting women and children.

The water flowing from the eyes of the sculptures recalls the way in which crying is often depicted in cartoons and animation, with the tears gushing forth like a waterfall. Drawing inspiration from the fountain at the Sanctuary of Bom Jesus do Monte in Portugal, where water symbolically embodies the act of seeing, the gaze of these figures, once passive, becomes a reciprocal exchange between viewer and sculpture. Water, a vessel for vision, reclaims the gaze, transforming the sculptures into conduits of perception, creating an interplay between agency and vulnerability.

The title of the piece references the phrase “women and children first”, the idea that the weakest and most helpless members of society should be saved first in an emergency.

Women & Children was previously exhibited in the High Line park in New York. It was acquired for the collection of the Finnish National Gallery with support from the New Carlsberg Foundation.

“Nina Beier’s sculptural group gives women and children pride of place in front of the museum. It is a refreshing departure from the other public sculptures in the area, dominated by memorials of Finnish presidents and Richard Serra’s steel piece Plunge. We’re delighted that support from the New Carlsberg Foundation has enabled us to bring new kind of contemporary art to the heart of the city,” says Leevi Haapala, Museum Director of Kiasma.

Nina Beier (b. 1975, Denmark) is an internationally acclaimed contemporary artist. Beier often creates her sculptures from existing objects whose status and value have changed over time. She has used wigs made of real hair, mechanical bulls, palm nuts from the Seychelles, porcelain vases and hand-rolled cigars. In her works, Beier juxtaposes globally produced and trafficked materials creating dialogues between them which unfold the histories they carry.

Nina Beier’s exhibition Parts opens at Kiasma on 22 March. The show is the most comprehensive survey of her work in the Nordic countries to date.