Poster for a fetish art exhibition titled 'Juxtaposer Vanillaphobia' with a dark background, white and blue text, and a stylized image of a person in a provocative pose wearing a mask, sitting on a bed.

KINKS XXX VANILLAPHOBIA art exhibition is a dismantled sex album including pages of imaginary erotic scrapbooks and pornographized advertising slogans and texts, made by Finnish artist Peter Juhan. Exhibition declares fetishism and kinkiness, jokes about norms in our society and glorifies free will, sex and pleasure. It introduces lives of professional dominatrix and her customer, gay and straight men, transvestite and human pup in their intimate habitat.

“Vanillaphobia” means fear of basic sex, vanilla sex. It doesn’t include BDSM or elements of fetishism.

“Our culture is poisonously based on rules and ideals, how to dress, how to behave and what is right and wrong. By giving familiar slogans a new setup and background, viewers can start thinking outside of the box and opening up for ideas and introspection. Sexuality can be unlimited in many ways and frankly speaking, it is not that damn serious.” - Peter Juhan

Writings shown on the artworks are based on product advertisements and cheesy home decor slogans, dialogues from amateur porn films and replies on Alastonsuomi and Grindr networking apps.

“How can we be so approbative to invest on killing each other, but at the same time by showing or hearing each other’s sexual behavior and fetishes, we instantly feel uneasy and awkward?” - Peter Juhan

Exhibition was part of Helsinki Pride 2023 program and funded by Finnfoto - a central association of Finnish photographic organizations.

Helsingin Sanomat article (in Finnish only)