Southnord Artfest: Pop-up Library: Center of Unfinished Business in collaboration with Contemporary And 2026

Southnord Artfest: Pop-up Library: Center of Unfinished Business in collaboration with Contemporary And is a pop-up reading room at Helsinki Central Library Oodi in Helsinki, running from 26 October 2026 to 17 January 2027. The C& Center of Unfinished Business offers a selection of books connected to colonialism, ranging from German colonization to Congolese fashion to twenty-first-century capital markets. This pop-up contains books from C&'s collection curated by Ethel-Ruth Tawe.

For this Helsinki edition, Southnord adds its collection of art reference books to the pop-up library. The Center does not aim to build a coherent and complete library on colonialism, since colonialism continues to exist in various forms.

It starts encounters and open conversations around persistent colonial power relations, including issues of accessibility and historical awareness. The reading room was launched in 2017 and has connected with institutions from Cincinnati to Hong Kong, via Berlin, Vienna, Toulouse, Athens, Kassel and New York.