Artist Seppo Salminen’s work indicates that war constitutes the male body as a site on which a variety of forces, including nationalism, violently write their scripts. The male body is sacrificed and its bodily and mental mutilation is carried over from one generation to another. Post-war national identity politics is incorporated into Salminen’s own body: his own body acts out the collective trauma of war that cannot be erased from the national identity. Hence, Salminen’s body becomes in his works a ’trauma body’ that embodies the trauma of war. Since trauma resists symbolization, Salminen’s ‘trauma body’ cannot fully be appropriated by the nation-state, and moreover, it actively resists this appropriation. Salminen eventually adds to the national anxiety and ruptures the practices of national identity by interrupting the signifying practices that try to appropriate male bodies in a heroic manner. Instead of contributing to the nationalistic community, his pain and vulnerable body create a community through compassion.
