rainio & roberts

Minna Rainio (b. 1974, Finland) and Mark Roberts (b. 1970, England) are an award-winning Helsinki-based artist duo who produce short films and large-scale, moving-image installations.

Their heavily research-based work investigates the impact of social and political power on individual experience and history, and its manifestation in physical spaces. Their installations often create immersive spaces that mirror the subjects of their artworks, and implicate the spectator as a participant in the implementation of power relations. Their visual language frequently employs narrative techniques to create a “documentary fiction” that reveals the connections between the personal, political, social, commercial, and ecological spheres, and their effect on our everyday lives.

Their major works include They Came in Crowded Boats and Trains, How Everything Turns Away, Maamme / Vårt Land, Eight Rooms, Angles of Incidence, Borderlands, and Some we kept, some we threw back. Their new film, To Teach a Bird to Fly, will be completed in early 2020.

Their films have screened in the Official Selections of Camden International Film Festival (USA), Aesthetica (UK), Interfilm (Berlin), Punto de Vista (Spain), LISFE (Leiden), FrontDoc (Italy), Reggio Film Festival (Italy), and FIFE (Paris). 

Their installations have been exhibited extensively around the world, in solo shows including Luleå Kulturenshus, Sweden (2014), Peri Photography Gallery, Turku, Finland (2014), Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki, Finland (2012), Franklin Art Works, Minneapolis, USA (2010), and the Finnish Cultural Institute, Paris France (2009). 

They have also participated in numerous group shows at galleries including 13,700,000km3, Samos, Greece (2019), Riga Biennial, Latvia (2018), ICPNA, Peru (2014), MEC, Montevideo, Uruguay (2014), Preus Museum, Norway (2013), Pori Art Museum, Finland (2013), Governer’s Island, New York (2011), Thionville, France (2008), Finnish Photography Triennial (2006), and Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki (2004). 

Their work has been selected for exhibition by renowned curators such as Katarina Gregos, Ritva Röminger-Czako, Andreas Vowinckel, Leena-Maija Rossi, Kari Soinio, and Marketta Seppälä.