The exhibition Artists’ Island on Harakka Island (10.8.-26.9.2021) is for us an unusually large (31 artists) and professionally prepared (curator Veikko Halmetoja) summer exhibition that spreads out in various locations on the island, and this time also in the main building. More information about the exhibition can be found in the press release, available in English, further down on the main page in Finnish, here.
My two contributions are both placed in the main building, and both are made on the island during the summer 2020. The video Dear Spruce – Kuusi Hyvä (41 min.) consists of seven letters to the only spruce on the island, and is shown as a compilation on a small TV-monitor in the library, with the letters read as voice-over narrations, in Finnish. I planned to use headphones to make listening a more concentrated experience, but did not manage to make the connection work. Because of the pandemic the use of headphones was not wise, so I abandoned the idea. Now my voice, not too loud, though, ills the whole library. The english translations of the letters are available in a folder and the video letters are available with English subtitles online, here.
The other work on display is July with Pine (16 min), which is shown as part of a screening compilation made by Kari Yli-Annala in the auditorium. Originally I imagined this work as a nonstop loop somewhere and the letters, as part of the screening compilation. The letters together are too long, however, and even this video is almost too long for a compilation, despite being the brief version of the work. The full version is 50 min 46 sec, although I doubt that I will ever show that version publicly, the brief version with 30 second clips feels long enough. The sea view opening from the darkened auditorium, as it were, works rather well, though. Some kind of documentation of the process, including notes (in Finnish) written after each recorded session, is available online, here.
The exhibition spreads into the ammunition cellars and the old telegraph and contains many kinds of work – already the screening compilation is rather multifaceted – and the walls of the main building are covered with paintings, installations and all kinds of images. My contributions are actually rather conventional in this context.The surfaces are cleaned of useless rubbish to let the works shine and the house feels like a magic fantasy world – I almost wish it would always be like this…
Meetings with Remarkable and Unremarkable Trees 