PRINT-AGAINST
Scaffolding lessons from Luokkataistelu
10.—27.9.2026
Open Fri—Sun 14—18
Opening on Wednesday 9. September 17—20, welcome!
Welcome to the PRINT-AGAINST exhibition at the Oksasenkatu 11 gallery, which will open on September 9 at 17.00. Organized by Rab-Rab Press, the exhibition uses the gallery as a space for discussion and production around independent publishing. The exhibition focuses on Sulo Vakkari and his oppositional leftist journal, Luokkataistelu [Class Struggle], and expands to include contemporary publishing collectives to think together about how to use printing as a technique, or device, for organizing and distributing oppositional subjectivities.
We start with the idea that transitory, fluid, and improvisatory publishing practices can introduce new forms of organization, which we call “scaffolding.”
Scaffolding is made of cheaper material, is put up only temporarily, and is dismantled, or if wooden, scrapped for firewood as soon as the shell of the structure is completed. Also, the scaffolding around a building facilitates communication between the builders, enabling them to distribute the work and to view the common results achieved by their collective labor.
The first floor of the exhibition is dedicated to Sulo Vakkari (1901–1971), a stonemason who is most famous for collecting and interpreting Finnish working class songs. He was an early critic of Stalinism and the Soviet Union’s bureaucracy within the left. In opposition to the Communist Party of Finland’s “betrayal of the working class,” he started to publish his own Trotskyist magazine, Luokkataistelu [Class Struggle], in 1963, which he printed a total of 17 issues until 1971. Unlike the “wooden language” of most official leftist publications, Luokkataistelu included witty remarks on local politics and imaginative essays on vegetarianism, children’s rights, abstract art, international politics, medical imperialism, and more. Vakkari wrote most of the essays and also designed, printed, and distributed the magazine.
The central piece of the exhibition is Luokkataistelu-lehti [Luokkataistelu magazine], a 1970 film by the underground Ultra Filmi Collective (Carolus Enckell, Christian Olsson, and Claes Olsson). The film depicts Sulo Vakkari’s daily life, including his songs, printing techniques, and alternative distribution strategies. The exhibition also displays reproductions of all the issues of Luokkataistelu and other archival materials, offering insight into the world of this marginalized, subterranean left.
The exhibition continues in the gallery’s cellar with the reading room presenting contemporary independent publishing from the margins. This includes 51 Personae from Shanghai, a cooperative publishing platform that gives voice to marginalized and suppressed initiatives; Kolxoz, the communal printings workshop from Chișinău; and a selection of Ukrainian independent and oppositional publishing practices.
On Saturday, September 19, we will organize talks around PRINT-AGAINST and focus on the relevance of the fluid nature of independent publishing activities. We will also explore how these open platforms of transitory, ephemeral, light, transportable, and demountable printing strategies can inform contemporary artistic and social practices.
Filmmaker Claes Olsson will give a talk on the making of the Luokkataistelu-lehti film and Ultra, an anarchist underground zine he was involved with in Helsinki during the late sixties and early seventies. Chen Yun and Mengdi Zhang will present independent publishing in China, focusing on 51 Personae. Maxim Poleacov will discuss the collaborative practices and infrastructure of the underground publishing projects in Chișinău. Dasha Taushan will present her selection of independent publications from contemporary Ukraine.
Kalasataman Seripaja will run a small workshop on silkscreen poster printing during the public programme.
“As the global communist labour movement frees itself from its ties to Moscow, it will rely solely on its natural source of strength — the proletariat, and above all, the working classes of colour around the world, which constitutes today’s true proletariat.”
Sulo Vakkari, Luokkataistelu, No 1–2, 1963