Lin Da:
Connections and combinations

An artist’s view of the navel as a memorial site 

Visual artist, choreographer and dance artist Lin Martikainen, with the artistic alias Lin Da, opens their new solo exhibition Connections and combinations on Wednesday December 3rd, 2025 at HAA Gallery in Suomenlinna, Helsinki.  

The exhibition is a result of the artist’s work with the navel. Da approaches the theme of the bellybutton from a somatic perspective, exploring the experiential relationship with the body, and by engaging with the spectators of their art through imagination and empathy. The navel is both an artistic question and a bodily memorial: a point through which bodies have previously been connected and where the porousness, sharing and interdependence of life still rests. 

Working on the concept of the navel and its materialisation, Da has also started to view the navel as a kind of creature: What if the navel had a gaze? Would it like to make eye contact with other bellybuttons? If the navel had a sense of taste, what would it most often taste? If it had a sense of hearing, what kinds of sounds would it live with? If the navel wanted to feel touch, what would it like to touch? 

Collaboration, asking for help and the watery body 

Since 2022, this work has taken place both with artist colleagues and with a queer participant working group founded through an open invitation. Da has asked for and offered help, made kin between bodies, and witnessed what happens when stepping towards a common field of experience through the thought of the navel. 

Water serves as the foundational material for the works, folding together the somatics of the navel and the conditions for life: human bodies are liquid creatures that need water, preserve it, and leak it. Cells meet in a liquid environment; the fetus rests and grows in embryonic fluid; the placenta and umbilical cord sustain life through fluid exchange. Water is a basic condition for life, which the umbilical scar reminds us of. 

About the artist 

Lin Martikainen / Lin Da works in the intersection of dance, visual art and performance. The immersion of the spectator body in the world of the works is an integral part of Da's art, which is built on spatial-bodily-temporal thinking. Their art is rooted in sensoriality, exuberance, enfoldment, and the deep corporeal exploration of their themes. 

Da has graduated from, for example, the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance, the Theatre Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki (MA, choreography) and the Academy of Fine Arts of the University of the Arts Helsinki (MA, spatial and temporal arts). 

www.linmartikainen.com/