EVELIINA HÄMÄLÄINEN: VIIVE (DELAY)
The name of Eveliina Hämäläinen’s newest exhibition Viive (Delay) talks about the artist’s interest in temporality. In the exhibition the artist continues to study the changes in interconnections and perception. Hämäläinen’s paintings make visible the changes that occur in our colour vision in the dark or dim light. The artist is also interested in the ways in which lights or sounds change our perception and how we experience that. How does delay or slowness of perception affect our experience?
Viive exhibition demonstrates how multifaceted Hämäläinen’s body of work is since her paintings and ink drawings are like two sides of the same thing. One can almost feel the many layers of the paintings while looking at them, whereas the simplicity of the works in ink reveals patterns and subjects similar to the paintings. The way in which the artist deals with time in her painting process is made concrete in her work. The surface of the paintings reminds us of tapestries and Gobelins and directs our thoughts to touch and its traces. The artist points out that in the paintings in ink “every trace and touch remains visible and is recorded on the paper.” In other words, the technique shows past movements and lost time.
The paintings that fill the Parvi space of Forum Box have been finished between 2020 and 2022 and show how the relationship between questions and answers is different in artistic work compared to everyday thinking. A tiny phenomenon may open a new direction for artistic thinking, and the many layered, large-scale paintings have various meanings. They do not make univocal statements about the world but approach it in a way that reveals new areas slowly. There are memories and inklings in Hämäläinen’s works. They move in past and present and speak of the future as well. The diversity of the biosphere opens up, as the artist paints a world inhabited by plants, animals, and humans alike.
Juha-Heikki Tihinen, translation by Silja-Maaria Aronpuro
The artist wishes to thank the Arts Promotion Centre Finland and Stina Krooks Stiftelse for supporting the exhibition.
KIM JOTUNI: ROOTS
The Forum Box Permanto space is dominated by a large upside-down rhizome, animation and a meditative soundscape.
I use a lot of wood in my work. Wood is not only a material for works but also provides a content starting point for works. The whole of the Forum Box exhibition got its inspiration from the communication between the trees. Trees are one of the prerequisites for the ecological chain and for life. Studies also show that they communicate with each other. The messages flow through the rhizomes, mycelium.
Working as a sculptor today involves using a lot of different 3D modeling programs. First, I created the roots of a tree into a 3D model and then the roots of the tree has been milled into shape with a cnc cutter. I think it is interesting how the end result shows traces of the instrument. The trace does not have to be a traditional trace of an ax or a chainsaw. The method and instrument are always part of the aesthetics of the work.
Lately, I’ve been interested in creating holistic entities that combine sculpture, animation, and sound. Many thanks to Sohei Yasui for designing the sounds.
MILLA-KARIINA OJA: STONE UNDER THE MOON
If nature had a mind, how would it work? Could we commune with it? How would it be possible to understand the innermost essence of a natural entity such as a stone or the wind? These questions have driven the odd imaginary world that Milla-Kariina Oja has constructed in the Stone under the Moon video installation.
The single-channel spatial video installation is centered on a barren and active island. The island is a living agent that writes its own story. Simultaneously, a human being aims to resonate with the surrounding environment through spontaneous ritualistic gestures.
We could think that nature´s “mind” manifests itself in many ways, for example, through seasons and the weather. These natural conditions intermingle to create momentary states/states of mind. But does this mind become real only through the presence of a being witnessing the experience itself?
The work meditates on the core of human beings’ intimate and profound relationships with nature, and reflects on our seemingly absurd ways of being and acting. Nature sets the boundaries that enable our very existence, but how can we learn to exist simultaneously as part of nature, and in nature?
The work and the exhibition was supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland and AVEK—The Promotion Centre for Audiovisual Culture.
Stone under the Moon (2022)
Single-channel spatial video installation, 4k, 8’32” loop with sound
Filming and editing by Milla-Kariina Oja
Sound design by Pertti Venetjoki
Visual effects by Marko S. Eronen
Colour definition by Timo Teräväinen
Mediabox