NO NIIN

24/02/2026

Palestinian architect, artist, and educator, Sandi Hilal, reflects on hospitality as a political practice, showing how private spaces – from living rooms to summer houses – can become sites of agency and collective self-determination.

Palestinian architect, artist, and educator, Sandi Hilal, in an interview with Reyhaneh Mirjahani, reflects on hospitality as a political practice, showing how private spaces can become sites of agency and collective self-determination.

18/02/2026

Contemporary art promises global inclusivity, yet hierarchies persist. Examining Kochi-Muziris Biennale and Konsthall C reveals how temporality, locality, and institutional practices shape whose voices and histories are truly represented today.

17/12/2025

NO NIIN issue 33 is LIVE 🔥

In this issue, with a primary focus on events and practitioners shaping the arts in Sweden today, we move in-between worlds: the archival and the immediate, the sacred and the habitual, the personal and the collective, the diaspora and the homeland. The issue features conversations on the emotional weight of diasporic identities, tracing Indigenous and African knowledge through cassava, bananas and bark cloth and hospitality as a political practice in Palestinian architecture. Also included are reviews of Claudia Pagès Rabal’s ALJUB and Liljevalchs’s When We See Us, probing language, power, and Black joy in contemporary art spaces, alongside critical reflections on European missionary photography in Palestine and the persistent hierarchies of biennales and institutional practices carrying a false promise of global inclusivity.

In this issue, with a primary focus on events and practitioners shaping the arts in Sweden today, we move in-between worlds: the archival and the immediate, the sacred and the habitual, the personal and the collective, the diaspora and the homeland. The issue features conversations on the emotional....

18/11/2025

✨Uusimaa Arts Council has awarded Uusimaa Art Prize 2025 to NO NIIN magazine ✨

The committee justified the prize as follows:

NO NIIN Magazine founded in Helsinki by two visual artists Elham Rahmati & Vidha Saumya has quickly become known for its promotion of art journalism and critical thinking in the art and culture sector. Since 2021, NO NIIN has provided an important platform for contributions that are substantively ambitious, carefully selected, critically boundary-breaking and contextually significant. In some cases, exceptionally fostering a space for dialogue within the Finnish art scene, resulting in change-making. Furthermore, it has insightfully promoted new ways of thinking and working towards hope, liberation, and building internationalist, feminist, anti-colonial solidarities.

NO NIIN has successfully functioned as a platform for artists, curators, and experts in the art and culture sector, offering a comprehensive overview of the best Finnish and international practices both locally and globally. It has attempted to redefine what “global” means in art, and to recognize and uplift artistic voices and practices from places that are often sidelined or deemed peripheral in the art conversation.

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Many thanks to all our readers, contributors, and supporters who have made NO NIIN’s work possible since 2021. A heartfelt thank-you as well to Taiteen edistämiskeskus - Taike for recognizing our work with the Uusimaa Art Prize. We hope that support for independent publishing continues for many years to come.

NO NIIN is supported by the Kone Foundation(2021-2024) and the Saastamoinen Foundation(2025)

Uudenmaan taidetoimikunta on päättänyt myöntää alueellisen taidepalkinnon NO NIIN -julkaisulle kunnianhimoisesta ja sisällöltään merkityksellisestä journalismista. Palkinnon suuruus on 5 000 euroa.

13/11/2025

Ananya Parikh, a professor at the Symbiosis School for Liberal Arts, interviews India’s leading documentary filmmaker, Nishtha Jain, on her documentary Inquilab Di Kheti and the cinematic language of revolution.

Ananya Parikh, a professor at the Symbiosis School for Liberal Arts, interviews India’s leading documentary filmmaker, Nishtha Jain, on her documentary "Inquilab Di Kheti" and the cinematic language of revolution.

05/11/2025

Lorena Cervera’s essay presents several feminist film collectives that challenged mainstream cinema by engaging in political debates, documenting activism, and creating spaces for women’s voices across Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s. By showcasing their largely overlooked work, Cervera emphasises their enduring cultural and political significance.

Lorena Cervera’s essay presents several feminist film collectives that challenged mainstream cinema by engaging in political debates, documenting activism, and creating spaces for women’s voices across Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s.

29/08/2025

AK Wane and Lola Olufemi discuss what we can learn from archives of revolutionary movements and which lessons to bring into modern activist practices.

22/08/2025

🔻NO NIIN Issue 31 is LIVE: Persistent Traces of Removal 🔻

From labor struggles in Armenia’s Syunik region to Shipibo-Konibo cosmology in the Amazon, from sonic politics in the Congo to women’s anti-archives in Riyadh, this issue traces how power shapes land, language, and bodies. Through essays, interviews, and reviews, contributors confront extractive economies, universalizing narratives, and cultural erasures, while insisting on memory, resistance, and radical ways of knowing, sensing, and imagining liberation.

Edited by Elham Rahmati and Vidha Saumya.

From labor struggles in Armenia’s Syunik region to Shipibo-Konibo cosmology in the Amazon, from sonic politics in the Congo to women’s anti-archives in Riyadh, this issue traces how power shapes land, language, and bodies. Through essays, interviews, and reviews, contributors confront extractive...

01/08/2025

Examining his own displacement, a Sudanese curator and former gallery owner reflects on the cultural, emotional, and psychological tolls from an ongoing civil war in Sudan through the movement and work of artists who relocated from Khartoum to Nairobi.

Examining his own displacement, Rahiem Shadad reflects on the cultural, emotional, and psychological tolls from an ongoing civil war in Sudan through the movement and work of artists who relocated from Khartoum to Nairobi.

31/07/2025

Amol K. Patil, in an interview with Pranita Thorat, details the deeply personal and politically charged narratives of his practice, discussing how his work lays bare the realities of caste, labour, and displacement.

Amol K. Patil, in an interview with Pranita Thorat, discusses how his work lays bare the realities of caste, labour, and displacement.

21/07/2025

Amid deepening global crises and rising state repression, Jonas Staal convened a gathering at Utrecht’s BAK—an institution well known for progressive art and political inquiry. Bringing together artists, activists, and thinkers, we reflected on the role of art in this era of climate catastrophe: resisting fascism, confronting genocide, and imagining alternative futures.

Sumugan Sivanesan reviews a gathering convened by Jonas Staal at Utrecht’s BAK—an institution known for progressive art and political inquiry—where, amid deepening global crises and rising state repression, artists, activists, and thinkers reflected on the role of art in this era of climate ca...