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Tristan Hamel Sampsa Indren
Ellen Kress

Tristan Hamel, Sampsa Indrén, Ellen Kress also were in the aforementioned Art & Context course and formed a group there to make SOMERO, an internet work about contemporary Somalian pirates and their position in global politics. The name of this journalistic/artistic piece is derived simply from the Finnish spelling of Somalian pirates: Somalialaiset merirosvot. Politically the main idea in the work is to show the background of this recent phenomenon on the coast of Somalia and to step by step prove that in spite of their anger and desperation and the ruthless violence they use, the pirates in many ways are a force of good in the world — or at least quite understandable and fair reaction to exploitation they have been subjected to. Who caused the poverty, misery and frustration of those Somalians, a few of which end up as pirates? Many of them have lost everything because of the civil war which was caused by the cynical politics of the West. And many, especially the fishermen, have lost their means of income because European, Russian and Japanese trawlers have been illegally overfishing on the coastline and thus left the traditional fishing waters of the primitively equipped and ecologically harmless Somalians half-empty. The pirates can now be seen a force for the good socially, since a part of their earnings end up helping not only themselves but also many other people living along the coastline. And ecologically the pirates certainly are a force for good, because they have scared the fish-looting monster-trawlers away, so now the fish stock along the is recovering and not facing immediate extinction anymore.