An exhibition of work by artists Henna Asikainen and Roua Horanieh will be presented at Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead during Refugee Week 2025. The project has been developed with the participation of a group of people with experience of migration and displacement, who now live in Gateshead and Newcastle.
To Own Both Nothing and the Whole World has been co-commissioned and co-produced by Counterpoints Arts and Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, and made possible by the support of Moomin Characters Ltd. It is part of celebrations marking 80 years since the publication of the first Moomin story by Tove Jansson, which had a focus on displacement. The title of the exhibition is a quote from Snufkin, one of the characters in the Moomin stories.
The project explores ideas of home and belonging, reflecting on the impact of displacement on both human and more-than-human worlds. Recognising that nature is our first habitat without which no home can be built. The materials used in the work are foraged from the surrounding landscape, each carrying its own enchanting story—bringing communities together in unexpected and meaningful ways.
The multiple artworks will be seen outside of the gallery, in the entrance area Lightbox, on Ground Floor and in the Level 5 Viewing Box, with its presence woven across Baltic.
At the heart of the work are Taihaku cherry trees and their extraordinary migration story, where a sole migrant tree in the UK became a saviour of the whole ecosystem, reviving the extinct community in its native country of Japan.
The exhibition also encompasses migratory birdnests with their many stories of movement, resilience and adaptation and 200-year-old tree roots planted during the Napoleonic Wars, and which were uprooted by a recent storm. Willow and other foraged wonders from community gardens feature within the artwork alongside a tree felled by a storm in local suburbia, a reminder of nature’s unpredictability and the cycles of loss and renewal.
Through this assemblage of living histories, To Own Both Nothing and The Whole World invites reflection on the interconnected journeys of people, plants, and place—foregrounding the invaluable contribution migrants bring to this country, and the power and beauty of nature and community in shaping our shared world.
The project aims to raise awareness around displacement and climate, to create the opportunity for dialogue with asylum seekers, refugees and migrants around the perception of their migration, their future and how they can thrive in a new environment. It also enables the opportunity for dialogue within the local area on what it takes to welcome a migrant community. Many different elements make a nest, and it takes many to create it, weaving together different elements to create something solid that can hold and shelter someone. By creating a story that lives on in people’s memories and thoughts, there is the potential to change minds and behaviours.
