It all starts like any other nightmare; completely ordinary. In the forest there is a cottage where trauma lives, and during the night it moves inside Helena’s (Nana Saijets) body where it makes a nest. When there is no way to run, the only way to escape is leaving your own body. Autofictional Pretend Sleep draws on dissociation caused by childhood sexual abuse – the separation of the mind and the body. The 15-minute moving image piece carries the viewer through a personal horror story to catharsis.
Making of this work have been supported by Kone Foundation, AVEK, Olga and Vilho Linnamo Foundation and Arts Promotion Centre Finland.
Anikó Kuikka is a Helsinki-based visual artist whose practice focuses on the extended moving image and its presentation in immersive installations. Kuikka’s works have been shown in solo and group exhibitions internationally. She graduated from the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 2017 and the Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki in 2015.