I recently finished my fifth and final (for now) journey as the Election Artist. Starting on Sunday 27 October I toured the USA in the lead up to and in the aftermath of the Presidential Election 2024 on 5 November. I travelled over 21,000 km in 2 weeks on buses, trains, shuttles, taxis and planes, visiting the key swing states Arizona-Wisconsin-North Carolina-Pennsylvania, and finishing my tour at the seat of power in Washington DC on Monday 11 November. In planning my route I tried to cover as much ground across the USA as possible, taking into account the varying geographical locations, histories and cultures of each area and its communities. The cities and towns I visited in each state represented the counties where Trump and Biden had the highest support in 2020. With this approach my aim was not to underline polarisation, but to try to document as many varying experiences, perspectives, values and needs as I can. 

My fourth journey as the Election Artist started in the final week before the UK General Election on 4 July 2024. In the lead up to the vote and in the aftermath I journeyed across the 2,447km to visit the 12 countries and regions of the UK, travelling via trains, busses and planes along the route London-Belfast-Glasgow-Newcastle-York-Nottingham-Manchester-Birmingham-Cardiff-Exeter-Brighton-Cambridge-London. Heartbreakingly the election in the country I’ve called home for the last 17 years was the first election I documented as the Election Artist in which I didn’t have the right to vote.

I began my third journey as the Election Artist on Saturday 2 June 2024 in London, UK, when I cast my vote in the EU Parliamentary Election at the Finnish Embassy in London. From there my 4,762km journey continued across 5 out of the 27 EU member states along the route London-Rome-Warsaw-Berlin-Paris-Brussels-London in the lead up to the final day of voting on Sunday 9 June. I finished my tour in Brussels by visiting the European Parliament to document the seat of power and to witness the preparations for the announcement of the results.

My second journey as the Election Artist started on Monday 15 January 2024 in Espoo, Finland. My goal was to re-visit each of the 13 Finnish electoral districts in the 4 weeks before the second and final vote in the Presidential Election. Travelling via trains, ferries, busses, cars and planes over the course of a month I journeyed across the 4,335km long route Espoo-Helsinki-Rovaniemi-Sodankylä-Kemijärvi-Kuusamo-Kajaani-Pieksämäki-Hankasalmi-Joensuu-Helsinki-Kotka-Helsinki-Salo-Helsinki-Turku-Maarianhamina-Turku-Rauma-Helsinki-Lempäälä-Kokkola-Helsinki-Lahti-Helsinki-Kotka-Helsinki. On my second journey I expanded my route into new cities and new communities to document how the election looked and felt across Finland.

I began my first ambitious weeklong journey as the Election Artist on Sunday the 26 March 2023 to visit every 13 electoral districts of Finland before the polls closed at 8pm on Sunday the 2 April. The journey began with a flight from my home in London to Helsinki, and continued via train to Rovaniemi in the Lapland electoral district. From there I travelled onwards via trains, ferries and busses across the 3,408km long route Rovaniemi-Oulu-Seinäjoki-Tampere-Jyväskylä-Kuopio-Pori-Turku-Maarianhamina-Turku-Helsinki-Vantaa-Espoo-Lahti-Kotka. The journey ended in Kotka, the Southeast Finland electoral district, where I was born and where I grew up. In an emotional moment on the day of the election I voted in person at Kotka City Hall for the first time since the Finnish Presidential Election in 2006.