Jenna Sutela: Ave bossa, bow ole

Date: 4 October 2025 – 9 January 2026
Location: Stroom Den Haag, Hogewal 1-9, The Hague
Opening: Saturday 4 October 2025, 17:00 hrs

This fall, Stroom Den Haag proudly presents Ave bossa, bow ole, the first solo exhibition of Finnish artist Jenna Sutela in the Netherlands. The exhibition revolves around systems open to the wider environment—a world made of brains. It challenges the narrow understandings of consciousness that scaffold an anthropocentric logic of value and meaning, while considering interrelationships at all scales.

The starting point of this exhibition is the concept of ’tech povera’, a makeshift genre that Sutela coined to describe her approach to technology in the context of art. It refers to the 20th century art historical movement Arte Povera that saw art as a living process rather than a fixed object and materials as meaning. Vermi-Cell (2023), a work presented underground at Stroom den Haag, serves as an example of this approach. An earth battery powered sound piece, staged inside and around heaps of worm compost with metals and wire emerging from them, uses energy from the organic, decomposing matter to present a work and as a work.

At the same time as developing Ave bossa, bow ole, Jenna Sutela is preparing for her participation in the Venice Biennale in 2026, where she will exhibit in the Finnish Pavilion.

Jenna Sutela (1983) is known for her extraordinary, collaborative practice in which biology and computation mutually question and reinforce each other. The works include chance elements and evolving structures, being both live and alive.

The exhibition is made possible thanks to Frame Finland, the Mondriaan Fund, the Creative Industries Fund NL, the Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux, and the Municipality of The Hague.