After becoming part of the Soviet Union following the Second World War, Vyborg gradually transformed from Finland’s prosperous second-largest city into a small provincial border town in Russia. The impact of this traumatic history, together with the influence of multiple cultures, has turned Vyborg into a kind of palimpsest. The ruins of buildings destroyed during the war remain in the town, evoking ambiguous feelings among visitors. The study seeks to understand how the presence of these ruins shapes the experience of contemporary Vyborg and how this experience can be perceived and conveyed through the practice of contemporary art.

I applied feminist new materialist theories, along with hauntology and theories of ruins, to my research. I chose diffraction as a method for this research and proposed the concept of thinking-with-ruins as a feminist onto-epistemological practice.

The artistic component of my research consisted of three parts: a series of analogue black-and-white photographs, a video art piece, and a diary, which I presented in an exhibition. Since the exhibition was held in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, I chose an online format as the safest and most accessible option at that time.

Here you can find some screenshots from the online exhibition.