November 11, 2024 published on-line an interview of Marjatta Oja, conducted by Lorella Scacco.
https://videoartvideo.ecal.ch:9443/download/INTERVIEW%20with%20MARJATTA%20OJA%20(kopio).pdf
Interview of Marjatta Oja
The interview took place in October 2024 and was conducted by Lorella Scacco
Marjatta Oja (1962, Forssa, Finland) lives and works in Helsinki. She has studied at the Free Art School in Helsinki, the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan and in the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki, where she completed her doctoral studies in 2011. In the Finnish art scene, she is a pioneer to start using video and slide projection as a central element in her work. Her main goal is to infuse image with depth, liveliness and three-dimensionality into “situation sculpture”.
Oja’s works have been presented in exhibitions and events since the late 1980s in Finland, Scandinavia, Europe, Asia and the USA. Her work is in the collections of, among other institutions, the Modern Museet in Stockholm and the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in Helsinki.
When did you first start using video? What type of equipment did you use at the time?
I used a video camera for the first time c. 1986. At that time it was possible to rent a vhs-portable-suitcase-pack from video rental places. I asked my friend Tiina Kaukanen to join me on shooting trips and we were very fascinated with the new device. I remember Irented it several times till the possibility ended. The same year I got into the Academy of Fine Arts but I didn’t include any video in my application to get in. If I remember right it wasn’t even possible. Video as an art form wasn’t yet totally accepted.
Why was video camera as a device particularly attractive for you at the time?
At first I felt it was very funny as I was also interested in using a still camera. Later, the first years in the Academy, I started to question the painting form as it was so far removed from everyday life, which I found a remarkable subject in art. Video was easy, even too easy a way to make an image. And furthermore, a lively moving image, which had to get tamed to everyday life.
Where did you have your educational background? And in video how did you start?
After high school I spent a year in Orivesi Opisto in fine art studies, then evening and summer courses at the Free Art School in Helsinki, then basic degree studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki and one year at Brera Accademia di Belle Arti in Milan. Later I returned to the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki and continued till the end of my studies, to graduate as Doctor of Fine Arts.
In my first year at the Academy I insisted on participating in the first video course of the school. That was difficult because it was targeted to students in the higher classes. But I succeeded.
The first videos I shot as I explained before. I seriously thought about art video works when I started to experiment in the end of the 1980s in my studio at the Academy. I had returned from Italy summer 1989 and space had become important for me. I looked for satisfaction with the results and soon I noticed I was working with something new. I also asked and got the only video projector, which was called ’video cannon’, to use in my studio. Another important fact is that I had an open-minded teacher who supported me by discussions about my experiments, Oliver Whitehead. The first works were a big surprise for the very new group of founders of Muu ry, which later led to the start of AV-arkki in Helsinki.
Helsinki Filmmakers’ Co-op was mainly dedicated to experimental film. Could you talk to us about how was your experience with this artists’ group? Have you experimented there with the video camera?
That time when that group was started, I became friends with the founder, Sami van Ingen, and I followed closely the exciting starting process. It was strange to start to work with an older form of moving image, but that time the quality of the film-image was so much better than video, that I found it worth the experiment. And of course, as the film was very worky material, I looked forward to the possibilities to transfer film-materials to easier an easier medium, video. At the same time I got my first prize for my art. The slow film making slowed also my, maybe too quick, development. It was also interesting to study the history of film in co-op, to follow the experiments of other participating young people and also to get to know Philip Hoffman, the Canadian experimental film-maker. He was invited to conduct a course in Helsinki Filmmakers’ Co-op.
Apart from a few video experiments in the late 1970s, video art entered late in Finland in comparison with other Nordic and European countries. In your opinion, what is the reason?
Good question. It didn’t seem late. If it is so, I think the reason might have been that painting was highly valued and there was a commercial boom of expressionist painters in Helsinki. The best ones were shown at Mikkola’s gallery, which stayed far from the experiments I was making.
Maybe, the period before, had been influenced by USSR in 1970s, and then the opposite cultural direction towards USA started and a modernistic-expressionistic era, although it was late. Somehow, I feel that the nearness of the USSR had made people connect themselves to cultural events there, through studying in Leningrad or Moscow. And as the western cultural development had influenced the east slowly, it also slowed down the Finns, from the western point of view.
In any case, reading history, Finns have always been open-minded to new technologies. For example, I got to know about the early photographers in Finland, the earliest 1842. Compared to many other countries in Middle Europe they were very bold here in the far north.
How did you produce, show, distribute, and promote your videos in the 1980s?
I graduated in 1990 from the Academy of Fine Arts with the first spatial video works that I started 1989. It meant that the works were well shown, distributed and promoted in the graduate show. My Bath work was taken to participate in the Nordic video art exhibition, which toured in Scandinavia. And Moderna Museet bought it, which meant a big promotion to my works generally. The art scene in Helsinki was convinced and maybe my success helped video art to break through in Finland. At least, suddenly, I was asked everywhere. I had my first solo show with new spatial video works in Gallerie Pieni Agora founded by Virpi Näsänen, and the Finnish National Gallery in Helsinki bought my work.
How were your videos received by the critics and audiences in Finland at the time?
I got a critics’ special prize called Kritiikin Kannukset and a couple of other prizes after that. So I think I was very well noticed. The main reason might have been that I was the first artist using video projection in Finland. I didn’t notice the general reception of my works by the audience, as they visited the exhibitions independently. So I was always surprised when somebody contacted me. Now afterwards, when I notice the media boom of any artist, I am thinking that soon it will be over, as happened to me.
Finnish video promoters wanted me to call my works ’video installations’ because it would have been easier internationally to understand what my works were. But it was very difficult for me because I had noticed that artists using video projection after my works, used that name, ’video installation’, for whatever video which was projected in the exhibition space. I thought there is something else, the specific nature of my works, which separates them from, for example, short films which are in video format projected in the exhibition space.
Which are the most relevant film festivals or video screenings in Europe and in othernations you took part in the 1980s?
1990
Kuopio International Video Festival/Kuopion kansainväliset videofestivaalit
Helsinki Festival/ Helsingin juhlaviikot
1990-1991
Interface-nordic video art, touring exhibition/kiertonäyttely : Nordic Art
Centre/Pohjoismainen taidekeskus, Helsinki Moderna Museet, Stockholm
Frölunda Kulturhuset, Gothenburg
Århusin video festival, Århus, Denmark
1991
MuuMediaFestival, Helsinki
Helsinki Festival/Helsingin juhlaviikot The Night of the Arts, Helsinki
Hämeenlinna Art Festival
Kettupäivät Short Film Festival/lyhytfilmikatselmus, Helsinki
Gothenburg photo festival Ruotsi
Arnhemin AVE video festival, The Netherlands
December 1, 2023 – January 14, 2024: Hommage à Lauri Anttila
This autumn, we will be celebrating the 175 years of Academy of Fine Arts. An exhibition honouring the teaching work of Lauri Anttila (1938—2022), a long-time rector and professor of the Academy of Fine Arts, will open at the beginning of December at Kuva/Tila.
Lauri Anttila was a pioneer in artistic research, a reformer of art and artist education, and an esteemed and well-liked teacher. In his works, Lauri Anttila often referred to the legacy of the past influencing the present time. The exhibition explores the influence that Anttila’s work has had on the younger artist generations. Featured invited artists include Anttila’s students from various decades and artists who carry on the spirit of his art.
Artists
Lauri Anttila, Lauri Astala, Euro & Kiiveri, Shoji Kato, Petri Kaverma, Jussi Kivi, Tuomas A. Laitinen, Minna Långström, Tuula Närhinen, Marjatta Oja, Katarina Reuter, Leena Saarinen, Jyrki Siukonen, Markus Tuormaa, Elina Vainio, Milja Viita, Marko Vuokola
https://kuvatila.uniarts.fi/nayttely/hommage-a-lauri-anttila
Landscape is an installation that consists of a cuboid, which is covered with a transparent canvas. The cuboid is reinforced with a steel frame and mounted on a wall. Inside the cube is a video projection, and on the surface a printed reproduction of a Constable painting. The painting depicts a female figure in a forest, walking towards a clearing, while in the video the artist herself walks across a landscape from right to left. The light from the projection crosses through the surface of the painting and the figure in the video appears within Constable’s landscape.
October 26, 2023: Yli-Annala, Kari https://finnishavantgardenetwork.com/2023/10/26/taiteilijoiden- liikkuvasta-kuvasta-fenomenologisesti-huomioita-lorella-scaccon-kati-kivisen-ja-riikka- niemelan-tutkimuksista/ FAM 26.10.2023
August 2023: Galleria Sculptorin taiteilija esittely Marjatta Oja ja Kristina Sedlerova Villanen, Pia Männikkö.
August 3-27, 2023: Passenger Elevator exhibition in Gallery Sculptor with Kristina Sedlerova Villanen.
In their exhibition at Galleria Sculptor, Marjatta Oja and Kristina Sedlerova Villanen explore the theme of technology and its presence in daily life. As artists they share a common ground in ecologically critical works, where matter, media and human scale come intuitively together. Before their new collaboration, approximately a decade, ago Oja and Sedlerova Villanen met in the Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki as a teacher and a student. In this exhibition, as colleagues, they navigate dialogically towards new approaches reviewing the structures and methods in their practices.
https://sculptors.fi/en/exhibition/passenger-elevator-2/
kuva: A.Heinonen
August 3, 2023: Television interview
https://areena.yle.fi/1-66468301
May 13, 2023: Academic Dissertation to be presented, with Faculty of Humanities of the University of Turku, for public examination in the Auditorium Aava, Arcanum.
A Phenomenological approach to media art environments: The Immersive art experience and the Finnish art scene
Scacco, Lorella
(13.05.2023)
https://www.utupub.fi/handle/10024/174508?fbclid=IwAR0q7UkhSoSrvW_H5gO8pgRmFL-Bj4ikZbHYfrm3rkYbJF0xQ4C-2XGrY00
March 9th: Art and Activism discussion, Rosebud Sivullinen, Kaisaniemenkatu 5, Helsinki
https://www.kritiikinuutiset.fi/2023/03/02/taide-ja-aktivismi-keskustelutilaisuus/
Taiteen ja aktivismin suhde tiivistyy ja korostuu kriisien maailmassa. Taiteen kyky kyseenalaistaa ja kuvitella liittyy konkreettisesti poliittiseen todellisuuteen. Millaisiin muutoksiin aktivistinen taide pyrkii? Mitä se merkitsee tekijälleen?
Kuvataiteilija Teemu Mäki ja tutkija, kuvataiteilija Marjatta Oja keskustelevat taiteen ja aktivismin suhteesta. Keskustelun juontaa kirjailija, toimittaja Emilia Männynväli.
Kirjakauppa Sivullinen tarjoaa 10% alennuksen kirjoista tapahtumaan osallistuville.
Tilaisuudessa on pientä tarjoilua.
Keskustelu avaa Kritiikki näkyy! -hankkeen ja Suomen arvostelijain liiton Kulttuurin after work -keskustelusarjan. Syväluotaavia ajankohtaiskeskusteluja käydään kevään aikana yhteensä neljä, seuraavan kerran 13.4.2023. Sama aika, sama paikka. Kaikki keskustelut striimataan.
Keskustelijat:
Teemu Mäki on kuvataiteilija ja ohjaaja, sekä kirjoittaja ja tutkija. Mäen oopperaa Ihmisen jälkeen / Posthuman esitetään Tanssin talossa 3.-7.3.2023 (sävellys: Max Savikangas, liberetto ja ohjaus Mäen).
Emilia Männynväli (ent. Kukkala) on kirjailija ja toimittaja, joka on kirjoittanut myös taidekritiikkiä. Männynväli on kiinnostunut valtasuhteista ja vastarinnasta. Tuoreimmassa esseeteoksessaan hän pyrkii luonnostelemaan elonkehälle ja -kirjolle kestävää olemisen tapaa.
Marjatta Oja on kuvataiteilija ja kuvataiteen tohtori, joka on mukana Taiteilija-aktivisti post-fossiilisessa murroksessa -tutkimushankkeessa (Taideyliopiston Kuvataideakatemia). Oja on tehnyt kuvataidetta 1980-luvun lopulta lähtien. Hänen töihinsä kuuluvat mm. yhteistyö Coast Guard Girrls -projektissa (Manifesta13, 2020), jonka aktivistiset aiheet liittyvät esimerkiksi merenpinnan nousuun, ihmisen liikkumiseen eri maiden välillä, uusiin kommunikointitapoihin sekä paikalliseen ja henkilökohtaiseen tietoon. Ojan seuraava ekologisesti kriittinen näyttely avautuu 3.8.2023 Galleria Sculptorissa Helsingissä (yhdessä kuvanveistäjä Kristina Sedlerova-Villasen kanssa)
January 6-29: ELO! 2023 Gallery Longa, Helsinki
ELO! exhibition shows big and small fenomenas middle of changes. The group exhibition is collected in the artists’ house Are Longa in Fish habour of Helsinki, near the subway station Kalasatama (fish habour). The participating artists are: Merja Heino, Juha Mäki-Jussila, Marjatta Oja, Jaakko Rönkkö and Inari Virmakoski. https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10160426267959660&set=g.875192272933119
December 8-14, 2022
Si Proche Si Loin & Collective Intelligence
TORSTAI 08/12/2022 17:00-19:00 The French institute is hosting an exhibition and a special evening dedicated to the artistic works of two artists collectives: Si loin/ Si proche from France and Collective Intelligence from Finland.
This exhibition in the Institute’s premises by the participants of the project from 8 to 14 December, will feature a face-to-face between the works of the participants of the two collectives. Alan Bulfin, Marjatta Oja, Irina Mutt and Veera Kuusisto & Alva Strang will exhibit with the artists from France.
https://www.france.fi/kulttuuri/si-proche-si-loin-collective-intelligence/
December 2022- February 2023
Collective Intelligence goes Echangeur in 2022-2023
Collective Intelligence is a series of deep dive sessions up to one month long; encounters where artists, thinkers and activists work on parallel and shared projects, influencing each other in a convivial frame. The focus in on presence and time, experimental process and curiosity. The activity does not come across as curated content or framework, and its outcomes are not set in advance. As a possibility, participants exchange practices and visions, they feel the context and create a common context. If this naturally leads-to and produces individual or collective outcomes it is welcome, but it is not compulsory. Bluntly put: production of artworks or exhibitions is not our aim, but if it happens it is sustained. Initiated by Egle Oddo in 2016, the project took inspiration from Pixelache rhizomatic and cluster-like chaotic projects. Here you can read about the beginning and past activity with Collective Intelligence in 2017, in 2018, in 2019, and in 2020. Past article on Voima Magazine.
This time the dialogue starts thanks to France-based artist Carita Savolainen who has been interested in interacting with Collective Intelligence
The place and time of the exchange:
– From 1st to 15th of December 2022 the artists based in France will be at HIAP Villa Eläintarha Residency in Helsinki. During this period all the artists involved and guests will use Myymälä2 gallery as shared studio, a space for encounter and experimentation.
– From 8th to 14th of December 2022 artists Carita Savolainen, Marie-Cécile Conilh de Beyssac, Nina Schipoff, Alain Léonési, Gilles Bingisser, Alan Bulfin, Marjatta Oja, Veera Kuusisto & Alva Strang, and curator Irina Mutt, will exhibit at the French Institute in Finland.
– In February 2023 a few members of Collective Intelligence group (Alan
October 2022
Luopumisen aika (Time of Abandonment)
Exhibition 7.10- 28.10 at Gallery Artista, Itäinen kirkkokatu 16, Kokkola / Opening on Friday 7.10. at 6 p.m / Artist talks Sat 8.10 at 14-16 Konsthuset Renlund
Doctor of Arts Jaana Erkkilä-Hill, Let’s ask the animals
Doctor of Fine Arts Marjatta Oja, Sea of Kokkola
Doctor of Arts Leena Valkeapää, In the Wind
The artists have known each other for a long time and have met randomly in different places in professional contexts. They move at the interface between art and research, think about life’s big questions and current social changes. The time of abandonment is the first exhibition where their works meet.
September 2022
Melancholia
Marjatta Oja´s and Mari Martin´s joint artistic research exhibition in The Academy of Fine Art´s Kaiku gallery and terrace (5th Floor) 1–9.9.2022.
The artists will also host a PDA event (Post doc art) 18.11.2022. The seminar is a part of CfAR´s (Centre for Artistic Research) autumn program.
Exhibition opens 1.9.2022 at 15:00 – Welcome!
Kuvataideakatemian päärakennus Mylly, Sörnäisten rantatie 19, 00530 Helsinki
The experimental situational sculpture of the Melancholia exhibition brings together my old works investigating video projection. I wanted to see what effect the camera image had on the shapes I was building. The shapes will speak or not to the viewer/experiencer without electricity.
July 2022
There where water meets shore
The window shows things related to shore activities. I enclose my own manifesto on the contemporary worries that climate change has brought into my life. I do not know how fast the sea level will rise, whether it will reach my window in Kalasatama.
I have been measuring the shores of Helsinki since the spring of 2020. I use branch I found on the shores, on which I mark the 20 cm intervals with tape. I set the brunch to sea level and a friend takes a picture. Taking a picture as an event and a picture after that do not produce empirical information anywhere. But as an act, it draws attention to the possibility of making one’s own observations and forming one’s own perception of the environment.
On display at the Window Gallery Fönari during July 2022. Tukkutorinkuja 6, 00580 Helsinki.
In the window:
2 x 100 years old sea map, Baltic Ocean
3 x old device for fishing, ’rysä’ , Mäntyharju
1 x painting study of the water and ground Lugano 1988-89
1 x wood used for measuring the sea level, Kalasatama 2022
1 x a photo ’Metro Station’ of measuring the sea level in Kalasatama May 2022, assisted by Merja Heino
2.6.-24.7.2022
Landing Stage
Beach Boulevard
Environment and Justice -exhibition 2.6.-24.7.2022. Longa & Fönari, Tukkutorinkuja 6, 00580 Helsinki.Gallery Longa open 2.6. – 24.6. (visible from the windows until July 24):
Wed – Fri 12 – 18
Sat – Sun 12 – 16
Fönari is open 2.6. – 30.6. 24/7
The exhibition & event has been supported by the City of Helsinki.
The Siemenpuusäätiö has taken part in organizing the climate change workshop. More information:
https://longafonari.blogspot.com https://www.instagram.com/longa.fonari/?hl=fi
The exhibition includes photographs, paintings, graphics, installations, a video essay and a musical performance. Some artists focus on greening the environment in a variety of ways. During the opening, there will be a creative climate change workshop, which is suitable for all ages. Participating artists:
Vesa Arjatsalo, Pira Cousin, Viva Grandlund, Ritva Harle, Terhi Hartikainen, Merja Heino, Janika Holm, Sanna Karlsson-Sutisna, Nella Central Series, Nastaran Nasir Zadeh, Teija Oikkonen, Marjatta Oja, Noora Ojala, Ulla Paakkunainen, Hannu Pakarinen , Markku Tanttu and Inari Virmakoski
Sompasaari Bridge
2.6.2022 Oja’s works are part of the exhibition about Environment and Justice. Opening of the exhibition 2.6.2022, starting at 4pm in the Gallery Longa of Ars Longa -house Artists, Tukkutorinkuja 6 00580 Helsinki. Welcome!
9.3.2022 Marjatta Oja participated Nature Dialogue online
Mukana keskustelemassa kirjailija ja filosofi Antti Salminen, aktivisti ja Saamelaisneuvoston vpj. Áslat Holmberg, dekolonisaatiota tutkiva antropologi Jasmin Immonen, kuvataiteilija Marjatta Oja,ympäristöaktivisti Ulla Laukkanen sekä Suomen luonnonsuojeluliiton toiminnanjohtaja Tapani Veistola. Keskustelun moderoi Siemenpuun varapuheenjohtaja Noora Ojala.
Kuva, Noora Ojala: Keräilytaloutta. Chico Mendesin keräilytalous- ja suojelualue, Acre, Brasilia. Valokuvaesseessä “Elävä ja kuoleva” (2021)
Free translation:
Participators of the discussion were writer and philosopher Antti Salminen, activist and vice-president of the Sámi Council Áslat Holmberg, anthropologist studying decolonization, visual artist Marjatta Oja, environmental activist Ulla Laukkanen and Executive Director of the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation Tapani Veistola. The discussion was moderated by Noora Ojala, Vice President of Siemenpuu.
The photo above, Noora Ojala: The Collecting Economy. Chico Mendes Collection and Conservation Area, Acre, Brazil. In the photo essay “Living and Dying” (2021)
During 2022 Oja makes new situation sculptures, plans new Coast Guard Girrls projects with Riikka Kevo (started 2020), a performance/presentation as an artistic research in the Uniarts with Mari Martin (coming 2022) and an art/reseach project with Leena Valkeapää & Jaana Erkkilä-Hill in their new group (coming 2022).
13.8.2021 Quantum Critic book launch in Myymälä2, Helsinki
20.5.- 13.6.2021 ’In the Wind – Sensing the Location Now’ is a collective exhibition introducing visual art, environmental art and live art combined together for this unique event, inviting all and anyone who is interested in art, activism and current topics regarding research in arts. This three-week-event will include the main exhibition, performances and discussions. The event is also part of the Art Fair Finland – contemporary art festival.
Riikka Kevo, Mari Martin, Marjatta Oja ja/and Leena & Oula A. Valkeapää 20.5.- 13.6.2021 Myymälä 2, Uudenmaankatu 23 F, 00120 Helsinki ke-la 12-18, su 12-17, ma-ti suljettu / wed-sat 12-18, sun 12-17, mon-tue closed
https://www.uniarts.fi/…/in-the-wind-sensing-the-location…/
https://www.facebook.com/In-the-Wind-Sensing-the-Location-Now-106557221543183
8.3.2021 Publication of the article in artistic research, Ruukku-journal, Studies in Artistic Research
Marjatta Oja‘s exposition “Pienenergia, arkisto ja uusi aktivismi” (Local energy, archive and new activism) challenges us to consider the scale and rhythms of artistic work in relation to energy consumption, both in its concrete meaning and at the level of the values and structures that guide these activities. At the same time, Oja draws attention to the scale of an individual’s artistic, bodily and everyday activities and brings together, in an original and topical way, a critical ecological discussion of energy and the unsustainability of our culture, as well as experimental artistic work. At the same time, Oja challenges the models and structures of artistic activity with their practices committed to longevity.
The whole editoral part of the publication: http://ruukku-journal.fi/en/issues/15/editorial
Marjatta Oja and Minna Heikinaho were interviewed in Forssa Museum by the museum director Kati Kivimäki. Premier of clip 25.2.2021 at 7pm.
Framed Errors 26.1.-21.2.2021 exhibition in Forssa Museum
‘Forssa-born artist Marjatta Oja found faulty fabrics in her cottage – an exhibition created from the contents of Finlayson’s sack bags’ . google translated.
more information: http://www.forssanmuseo.fi/ajankohtaista/?newsid=627&newstitle=Marjatta+Oja%3A+Kehystetyt+virheet+26.1.-21.2.2020
https://www.instagram.com/p/CKimzKvBcwM/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
https://www.facebook.com/forssanmuseo
3.12.2020 A photo work published in Italian newspaper! As part of article about Manifesta13 and ARKAD.
MARSEILLE PROGRAM
START ESADMM 23-28/11/20 12h-19h VISUAL TRANSDISCIPLINARY ART 23-28/11/20
Stefan Bressel, Roberto Boccaccino, Barbara Cammarata, Carla Costanza, Francesco Cucchiara, Gandolfo Gabriele David, Mauro Filippi, Pietro Fortuna, Daniele Franzella, Andrea Kantos, Riikka Kevo, Giacomo Rizzo, Marjatta Oja, Alberto Ruce, Leena e Oula Valkeapää
as part of KAD PRESENTS ARKAD Ideated and curated by Dimora OZ and Analogique
KAD (Kalsa Art District) presents, for Manifesta 13 Les Parallèles du Sud, the collateral event ARKAD, curated by Dimora OZ and Analogique.
22.10.-8.11.2020 Quantum Critic, with Collective Intelligence, Myymälä2, Helsinki
Riikka Kevo 29.02.2020 FB:
We are co-presenting with Marjatta Oja, Doctor of Visual Arts, and our project, Coast Guard Girrls, as part of the Italian ARKAD artist group Manifesta 13 at the Marseille Art Festival with our three-piece work, Taken by the Wind (2020). Our section is the official Les Parallèles du Sud. Welcome to France! Manifesta 13 to Marseille spreads throughout the Marseille-Mento region.
RUUDUN TAKANA
17.01.–01.03.2020
Galleria Rankka proudly presents
Galleria Rankka’s first expo in 2020 is a cavalcade of four Artists.
The Finnish video art pioneer Marjatta Oja modifies space with the moving image, the superdrawer Heikki Leis shows us his two-dimensional hyperreality, Maarit Rantala paints her sensitive and tragic universe and sculptor Laura Könönen brings up granite, a glowing threat and a feeling of danger.
Four different stories out of the reality we live in – told in four different ways.
Galleria Rankka
Eerikinkatu 36
00180 Helsinki
Open: Tue–Sun 13–18
galleriarankka.com
https://www.facebook.com/events/887934214973233/
Images picked up from the published article: https://kultuur.err.ee/1025899/galerii-heikki-leis-avas-helsingis-soome-kunstnikega-uhisnaituse#lg=1&slide=14
Research Project: Artist-activist in post-fossil revolution
October 2018
Collective Intelligence presents a series of experimental actions and events under the title IL TRAFFICO, for the 5x5x5 section of selected artists at Manifesta12, The planetary garden – Cultivating Coexistence. IL TRAFFICO is an experimental relational-art project focusing on methods for consensus and enhancing local ongoing processes in Sicily.
Collective Intelligence is an artist group who organizes a series of deep-dive sessions, encounters where artists, thinkers and activists work on parallel and shared projects, influencing each other in a convivial frame.
Collective Intelligence participants for IL TRAFFICO are: Antti Ahonen (FI), Ionas Amelung (DE), Alan Bulfin (IE/FI), Erika De Martino (IT/FI), Johanna Fredriksson (FI), Jytte Hill (DE), Egle Oddo (IT/FI), Marjatta Oja (FI), Saša Nemec (SI), Leonardo Ruvolo (IT), Timo Tuhkanen (FI).
During their projects in Sicily, Collective Intelligence has been collaborating with several local partners: the STEBICEF department of University of Palermo, Orestiadi Foundation, Sementi Indipendenti, and Dimora Oz artists run association. Dimora Oz collaborates with IL TRAFFICO through the contribution of: Stefan Bressel (DE), Francesco Cucchiara (IT), Gandolfo Gabriele David (IT), Daniele Di Luca (IT), Andrea Kantos (IT), Fabio R. Lattuca (IT), Michele Vaccaro (IT).
CI Press Pictures: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/a1aiipuvtfr806i/AAAnRlm3JfVAoOiUBRgC6GZ-a?dl=0
In the middle of September 2018
I was building the second Growing A Language exhibition in Myymälä2 Helsinki, with the other members of the group Collective Intelligence.
The show features a series of works realised between Finland, Germany and Sicily, in occasion of the artists’ participation to Manifesta12, and during their group residency at Fondazione Orestiadi. Their process will continue in October during the Il Traffico project as part of Manifesta’s 5x5x5 program.
The title of the exhibition, Growing a Language, uses the word growing as opposed to developing because it wants to contest the idea of development in its entirety. Urban development for instance often excludes plants, animals, and other biological and emotional factors from its planning and implementation. The act of growing a common language implies the amplification of the relations between different creatures and their environments, being critical towards the typical rational mode of developing systems and realizing dreams.
The common discourse on sonic, visual, conceptual, or text based approach, emerges from the different subjectivities, entangling and enlightening the intersections of the artists’ practices.
19.-23.9.2018
In the beginning of September 2018
Jukka Rusanen invited me to show my situationsculpture Hands 2010 in his retrospective exhibition ELEMENTS in the Lachenmann Art Gallery in Frankfurt am Main. I have been in dialogue with Jukka couple of years about our common interest concerning body and how it is experienced.
https://www.lachenmann-art.com
August 2018
RE-EXCAVATIONS | Exhibition at CDEx – Elastic Spaces
I participated remotely in Re-excavations exhibition in CDEx UQAM, Montreal. The exhibition is a continuation of the research project, which started In Helsinki 2017 with DFA Shoji Kato and DFA Paul Landon. The participants work with certain place together, creating individual artworks for the exhibition.
Re-excavation reflects on archaeological methods of unearthing and digging up. With this exhibition project it is the urban landscape that is re-dug up. The present and past city is reconsidered, what has been found repurposed for its future. Urban space is uncovered, expanded and upturned, interpreted as an abstract diagram, as material residue, as rumours of past usages and activities, as oral accounts and lived experience.
Montreal Crossing, 2018. Photo by Paul Landon.
The Re-exacavations exhibition with the works by Kévin Pividic, Pépite & Josèphe-Expédition, Paul Landon, Shoji Kato and Marjatta Oja
http://www.elasticspaces.hexagram.ca/2018/08/06/re-excavations-exhibition-at-cdex/
During 2018 summer
I have been participating the exhibitions in Sicily in the group called Collective Intelligence. At first In Dimora Oz ‘KaOZ’ (curated by Andrea Kantos) exhibition place in Palermo as collateral event of Manifesta 12 and secondly in ‘Growing A Language’ exhibition in Gibellina Sicily run by Fondazione Orestiadi.
Palermo Park 2018, photo by Francesco Cucchiara
Gibellina Ground 2018, photo by Egle Oddo