Wednesday, March 19

I spend the day looking at art. I start at Kiasma, walk over the road to Lasipalatsi to discover that Amos Rex has closed to set up a new exhibition, and eventually walk up to HAM.

I see more police and soldiers on the streets than I have ever seen. The soldiers stand at two metre intervals along Mannerheimintie. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the embattled president of Ukraine, makes a visit to Helsinki this afternoon, and the city has prepared itself.

Most of the exhibits I see have warnings not to touch. This one has a warning that you may enter the exhibit. Most people don’t. I do.

The Wonderful World of Abstraction, by the Swedish artist Jacob Dahlgren, consists of a square of hanging polyester ribbons close together enough to form an enironment of its own once you push your way into it.

Afterwards I sit and wait to photograph another entrant. Eventually one arrives.