PARALLAX - Geographies in Resonance

geographies in resonance – resonancias geográficas

P A R A L L A X

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LABORATORIO ARTE ALAMEDA, MEXICO CITY

On view from April 30th until July 6th, 2014

TERIKE HAAPOJA

The Party of Others – a political intervention,

part of the public program

CURATORS:

Giovanna Esposito Yussif

Marketta Haila

Exhibition overview online >>

Catalogue published by The Artists’ Association of Finland

ADEL ABIDIN II CLEANING WOMEN

VELI GRANÖ II TOMMI GRÖNLUND & PETTERI NISUNEN

KALLE HAMM & DZAMIL KAMANGER II MINNA HENRIKSSON

SASHA HUBER & PETRI SAARIKKO II IC-98 II ELINA JUOPPERI

TELLERVO KALLEINEN & OLIVER KOCHTA-KALLEINEN

KAISU KOIVISTO II ERKKI KURENNIEMI II ANTTI LAITINEN

KINOBOX OBSCURA II SEPPO RENVALL II MIKA TAANILA

ROI VAARA II ELINA VAINIO

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPeyLMFtlzE

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CONTENTS

Tania AedoForeword

4

Giovanna Esposito YussifParallax II Geographies In Resonance

8

Giovanna Esposito YussifTowards A Parallax View

10

Marketta HailaBridge building in the new world disorder

16

Artists 37

Public Program76

Organizers and supporters 78

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FINLAND: a great land in northern Europe whose closeness to the

Arctic produces a very long dark season and which, like Mexico, lies

largely between oceans. Images of this land come to us through com-

posers like Sibelius, whose music grasps the geopolitical overlaps

in this distant territory and its vicinity present since deep times. Its

epic and fantasy characters have emerged to become part of our

own tales. Nordic sagas and history have traveled not just through

an immense editorial and cinematographic phenomenon but also as

a bridge running alongside our own literary history. An intense tech-

nological development interlaced with a social concern for the envi-

ronment, long traditions of design and education, and of course its

part in the exceptional Nordic welfare system are some of the Finnish

traits recognized all over the world.

To inquire into what is going on in the variety of situations and phe-

nomena that define the current territory of Finland, and to do so

through contemporary art practices, may contribute to a larger con-

sciousness of our current planetary conditions and the processes

that gave arise to them. A task like this would require, however, more

specific questions and a curatorial investigation ready to negotiate

through aesthetical means the complexity of our present. To produce

a parallax view — that is, from its definition in Optics, one diverted from

its apparent position — deepens the format of panoramic display and

poses a singular dialogue among both Mexican and Finnish contexts.

FOREWORD

TANIA AEDO

Director

Laboratorio Arte Alameda

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Giovanna Esposito Yussif (Mexico City) and Marketta Haila (Helsin-

ki) conceived a project that brought together works and artists with

an enormous capacity to produce singular questions in a specific

context. Situated in the old temple of San Diego in Mexico City were

artworks by crucial actors in the Finnish contemporary art scene, a

crowd as heterogeneous as the topics implicated in the exhibition.

From the apparently contrary position — as is proper to a parallax view

— these artworks posed resonant questions about the present life of

ancient languages and their narrations; about the stories behind their

inventions from old to modern times; their ways of dealing with mi-

gration and the expressive forms emerging from this planetary-scale

phenomena; our dependency on fossil fuel energy and the downfall

it produced for natural resources; the exceptionalisms and the singu-

larities on both sides of the axes.

The crucial role of interchange in this project occurred above all in

the process of staging the exhibition at the space, with artists, cu-

rators, and a numerous and interdisciplinary team. The setting up of

some of the works in public areas as important as Alameda Central,

one of Mexico’s most important parks, and projections at Cine Tonalá

involved long and intense conversations, hard work, and more than

anything, presence.

ANTTI LAITINEN: Bark Boat, 2010, 14:47 min, video still

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PARALLAX II GEOGRAPHIES IN RESONANCE was conceived by

Giovanna Esposito Yussif and Marketta Haila as a long-term project

focused on developing an exchange platform between the Finnish

and Mexican art scenes. The first phase of the project, realized in

collaboration with the Artists Association of Finland, took place in

Laboratorio Arte Alameda from 30 April to 6 July, 2014. It present-

ed a complex landscape of Finland’s contemporaneity in resonance

with the Mexican panorama. Showcased were works by Adel Abidin,

Cleaning Women, Veli Granö, Kalle Hamm & Dzamil Kamanger, Min-

na Henriksson, Sasha Huber & Petri Saarikko, IC-98, Elina Juopperi,

Tellervo Kalleinen & Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, Kaisu Koivisto, Erkki

Kurenniemi, Antti Laitinen, Seppo Renvall, Mika Taanila, Roi Vaara,

and Elina Vainio. In addition, there were site-specific commissions by

Tommi Grönlund & Petteri Nisunen and Kinobox Obscura.

In order to expand the perspective on the Finnish panorama and the

artists on display, the exhibition was accompanied by an intense Par-

PARALLAX II GEOGRAPHIES IN RESONANCE

GIOVANNA ESPOSITO YUSSIF

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allel Program. Terike Haapoja was invited to introduce her project

The Party of Others to the Mexican audience. The In-depth program

showcased videos by Adel Abidin, Cleaning Women, Veli Granö, Tel-

lervo Kalleinen & Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, Seppo Renvall and two live

presentations by Mika Taanila – including his collaboration with Erk-

ki Kurenniemi. A small library with catalogues and artist books was

available to the audience. Furthermore, the film art house Cine Ton-

alá collaborated with us to screen a selection of documentaries from

the filmmakers Joonas Berghäll & Mika Hotakainen, Katja Gauriloff,

Mika Ronkainen, and Juha Suonpää. Lastly, Cleaning Women had a

series of live performances during November 2014 to celebrate Lab-

oratorio Arte Alameda’s 14th anniversary.

Through this first exchange, Parallax offered a platform for 18 artists

living in Finland to visit Mexico City; for the majority it was their first

time in the country.

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IN THE PRESENT global condition, geographies are challenged by

a continuous shift to deterritorialization and multi-territorialization,

which happens at such velocity that our capacity to react has under-

taken our capacity to observe and think about the territories we are

immersed in. What this underlined ‘uncertainty of the territory’1 de-

notes, is the uncertainty of the realities that are reproduced and in-

habited. It is on these unsettled grounds were ‘criticality’ surfaces as

a necessary route from where to question the sedimented ideological

structures that condition the human societies.

The interest on intersecting the artistic scenes of Mexico and Finland

raised with the occasion to reflect on the geopolitical dialectics of two

‘localities in flux’, located in the so-called Northern Hemisphere that

appear to be tensioned by different strings. On this path, understand-

ing that the concept of ‘distance’ is deeply related to space and time

economics, implies that ‘distance’ is a matter of perception rather

than metrics. The ‘illusion of distance’ makes it easier for hegemon-

ic models to pervade without questioning what they imply and how

deeply they touch the reality we inhabit: what is considered as north

or as south, as exceptional or barbaric, as developed or undeveloped,

as privileged or oppressed, and so on.

TOWARDS A PARALLAX VIEW

GIOVANNA ESPOSITO YUSSIF

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When the latter conditions one’s possible experiences and accesses,

it sediments the understanding of the territory as an element mainly

framed by its unique cultural constructs, based on its specific histor-

ical and geographical boundary conditions. Thus, the problematics

are understood as exclusively local and disconnected from external

influences2, and the figure of ‘the neighbor’ reigns as the main refer-

ential point. To move from the ties of such a reductionist approach,

what is proposed is to inhabit the complexity of these interconnected

territories and augment their resonances. To set fertile grounds from

where to understand not only the singularities but the commonalities

of the multilayered complex mechanisms that are shared beyond the

locative conditions.

In this context, the Greek concept ‘parallaxis’ was chosen as a meta-

phor — in the lines of Joyce, Karatani, and Žižek — in order to confront

the one-sided and reductionist approach towards our being-in-the-

world. It points out that even though it seems that there is no shared

space, synthesis, or mediation possible between different realities,

there is always the emergence of a new line of sight and connection.

Geographies In Resonance

During the first phase of the curatorial process, we dealt

with the question of how to make clear the necessity to construct

such a project from a post-national perspective and to understand

territories as relational networks that can provide new insights. In

other words, we aimed to avoid falling under the logic of the “national

export shows” and focus on the necessity of ‘bridging’. To go beyond

the ‘illusion of distance’ and to confront the image proposed by the

national branding (either self-proclaimed or prescribed by external

figures), which obscures the implications of admitting that societies

suffer from common diseases although their symptoms may differ.

Instead of selecting artworks as an affirmative gesture of value, the

curatorial line focused on intertwining the contextually of the hosting

city in a dialogue between the ‘globality’ inscribed in the claims that

the artworks reflect and the vocation of the venue.

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The venue selected for landing the project was Laboratorio Arte Alam-

eda (LAA), a museum located in the historical center of Mexico City.

This heterotopic space has had historical re-significations that date

beyond the construction of the convent in the sixteenth century. The

grounds that were part of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlán had later a

significant role during the Inquisition. Further, with the expropriation

of ecclesiastic goods by the state, it became the Pinacoteca Virreinal

designated to conserve paintings from the colonial period. While the

architectural blueprint has maintained it religious origin, the space

was again transformed in the year 2000 into an exhibition venue dedi-

cated to experimentation - hence the idea of the ‘laboratory’ - and the

production, documentation, and research of artistic practices that

dialogue with technology and science.

For the curatorial methodology it was quite important to construct a

dialogue with the museum’s architecture and take the challenge of

translating already existing pieces into a site-specific setting. The axis

signalized by the space was carefully considered for the selection of

the works, seeking for a common resonance that would add new sym-

bolic layers. To exemplify the dialectic resonance between the space

and artworks, I will draw the setting of the main nave. Kaisu Koivisto’s

Flood (2013) cascaded from the entry stairs. The work made with fake

leather jackets subtly resembled a spill of oil, the black gold whose

peak has long passed. It led to an installation of six experimental vid-

eos by Erkki Kurenniemi (ca. 1965 – 1970), which contrasted on one

side the sacrality of nature with the bet on a technological future.

Under the main cupola, the nodal space of the venue, stood Ciclón

(2014), a site-specific work by Tommi Grönlund & Petteri Nisunen.

The frail structure was activated by the audience sliding small steel

balls into the spiral pipe. It created a cyclic noise that grew with each

ball, filling the museum with its presence just to be followed by the

suspense of its silence.

The nave culminated with Mika Taanila’s The Most Electrified Town In

Finland (2004 –2012), a documentary of the construction of the pow-

er plant Olkiluoto 3 and its surroundings in Eurajoki. The video instal-

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lation was presented for the first time unfolded as a tryptic, instead

of its usual linear setting, in the area that used to be allocated for the

religious altar. The aggressive grow in productivity has generated a

never-ending energetic crisis, contesting nuclear energy as the cen-

tral piece in the altar of Modernity. As a response, Cleaning Women

song amplified from the chorus “We are searching for the energy that

will last forever (…) for a thousand years we haven’t seen the sun but

we don’t mind… no we don’t mind”. The text corresponds to Q4 The

Last Quarter of Year (2012), Cleaning Women’s poignant two-channel

video installation that comments on the mining of uranium.

In the continuous chapel the photograph of Markku Mäkinen (2010),

main character of Veli Granö’s video Prophet (2011), eerily guarded

the entry. The video was projected at a range that integrated the chap-

el’s existing mural, which portrays an image of colonization between

the frays and – possibly – the Aztecs. In this setting, the reflections

of Mäkinen were expanded into a contextual significance:

We’ll awake from a deep sleep. The whole of humanity has been in

a deep slumber created by the pressures of science and religion.

Mankind is awakening from it. Each individual will wake from their

personal slumber. For some it will be such a shock that they will not

recover. They will perish. Now that I am waking up from this dream,

and I gaze upon this room and this entity, its ceiling, its walls and

its floor, I come to an understanding. This is merely a reflection

of what truly constitutes me and the surrounding universe. Then,

I close my eyes and immerse myself into what I truly am and what

the universe and everything in it truly is.

From locality to globality, where to position our claims?

From the curatorial perspective, the discursive lines aimed

to emphasize five main challenges affecting both the local and global

spheres. As the argument in the nave pointed towards an absolute

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dependency on technology and monopolized energy resources, it al-

so referred to the estrangement of the contemporary subject from a

fractured social fabric. This context was present not only in the Proph-

et, it was replicated as well in the works by Elina Vainio (concisely in

Steamed-up Windows Turn Into Mirrors (2014), Seppo Renvall, Antti

Laitinen, and Adel Abidin.

Having in mind the effects of the colonial history in Mexico it was im-

perative to reflect on how segregation continues to be reinforced by

policies of migration and economic exploitation, and sustained by

racialized fictions that are still tied to warranty the classist, unidirec-

tional distribution of privileges. Minna Henriksson’s precise approach

in Sensitometric Experiment in Polaroid (2012) referred to the use of

technology as a tool for racial exclusion during the apartheid regime

in South Africa. On their joint practice, Kalle Hamm & Dzamil Kaman-

ger approach the latter by using plants as metaphors (the installa-

tion Garden of The Undocumented, 2012 – ongoing, and the videos

Garden of Invasive Alien Species, 2013; Removing Defenses, 2014),

reminding us that while decolonisation still needs to be achieved, the

tendency towards neocolonialism grows like weeds.

With the conception of the exceptionalism of the Nordic countries,

there is little awareness outside the regional influence regarding the

persistent discrimination towards Samí and Roma communities. Eli-

na Juopperi touches not only on this matter but introduces a further

line in the discourse, the loss of intangible knowledge (connected as

well to the video-performance Remedies, 2011, by Sasha Huber and

Petri Saarikko). While nationalism introduced a common territorial

language, the pursuit towards a homogenic globalism has pushed

towards the hegemony of a common language for all in the service of

market imperatives. In All that speak the language minus 30 (2012)

Juopperi photographed and captured those who speak and identify

themselves as Inari Samis. She also captured the resilience of lan-

guages that battle between an imminent state of disappearance or

the possibility of reactivation.

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Kinobox Obscura, an analog 3D camera obscura devised by Risto

Puurunen, Juho Pöysti, Mika Palonen and Tom Pesch, served as the

welcoming point. It tuned the audience to shift their minds towards an

inversion of the senses, as a ludic dissolution between up and down,

south and north, faraway and close.

The resulting thread that connected the artworks in Parallax II Ge-

ographies In Resonance pointed towards the failure of the utopia of

Modernity and underlined the effects and affects of a world all the

time more technocratically oriented and aligned with the volatile pre-

cepts of neoliberalism. Thus, the latent capacities that a ‘parallax

view’ entails, become an alibi to start exploring the potentialities of

(re)imagining the commons. Exploring the parallactic angle as a tool

enables, through a continuous repositioning of ourselves and our ref-

erents, to ‘map’ the terrain we inhabit. Perhaps this aids to restore

the possibilities for meeting, exchanging, and learning from the (un)

expected otherness.

1 Term coined by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, on El Pintor de Batallas, 2006:68-69. “The other day - Markovic went on in the same tone – I thought of something while I watched TV in a hotel. Men from the antiquity looked at the same landscape all their life, or most of it. Because the road was so long, even the traveler did, and that made him think about the road itself. Now, however, everything is so fast. Highways, trains... Even the TV shows many landscapes in just a few seconds. There is no time to ponder anything. Some call that the uncertainty of the territory.” My translation.

2 i.e. “what happens somewhere else does not affect me”, “(sh)it happens here, but elsewhere must be better”.

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IT IS COMMON KNOWLEDGE BY NOW THAT THE ONGOING FI-

NANCIAL CRISIS TOOK MOST ECONOMISTS BY SURPRISE.

But the economists are not the only specialists taken by surprise

by events in their respective fields. How about political analysts and

events in the Middle East or Crimea and Ukraine? How about the

World Health Organization and Ebola? And can anyone believe that

our response to the threats caused by climate change is adequate?

In a word, the globalized world has dramatically reached a new phase

in its history. In the current state of things, are there any a priori

grounds for comparing and evaluating things, events and experienc-

es? In our western cultural heritage, two versions of a priori grounds

hover at the background. One is a belief in a transcendent, rational

order in the world, which is divine by origin and which we humans are

able to grasp. A second, more modern one is a belief in universal laws

of nature, which determine the character of single things and events,

both in nature and human society, and we humans are able to dis-

cover those laws with the help of science. Both of these beliefs have

become suspect lately.

BRIDGE BUILDING IN THE NEW WORLD DISORDER

MARKETTA HAILA

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Political conditions in the world as we know it are globally intertwined

into a degree that coming to grips with today’s challenges is made

more and more complicated. While until the end of the 1990s noth-

ing used to be as certain as the bipartite division of the world and

the antagonism of the two power blocks, the current situation offers

concrete evidence that even many of the decisions made by world

leaders must be taken in a state of insecurity and often with insuf-

ficient or unreliable information - even though the intelligence appa-

ratus is more efficient than ever before. Ironically, the only constant

in the world after the Cold War is a non-linear process of crisis and

increased insecurity.

An idea of complete understanding of reality in the world is utopian -

only certain tendencies to take place can be indicated and foreseen.

We have to detect, all by ourselves, such local, contextual regularities

that matter to us. All events are different from each other on some

level of resolution; hence, our challenge is to identify relevant similar-

ities and differences. What is relevant depends on the context. This,

however, does not imply any shallow ’relativism’: the human condition

defines a variety of contexts, which are as real and definite as one

ever could wish. What could be relevant means for assessing these

contextual regularities in the current atmosphere of threats, in which

cultural, ethnic and social differences are unscrupulously used for

the benefit of political fights for hegemony.

Connecting different realities

In the two-part Parallax project, two geographical and cultural coun-

terparts – Mexico in Central America ‘down under’ and Finland in the

North ‘up above’ – are considered as metaphoric extremes that re-

flect upon the basic elements of human condition - dreams and be-

liefs, fears and threats. This perspective opens up both analytic and

normative questions, providing an important platform echoing condi-

tions of constructing locality in times of globalisation, post-colonial-

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ism and transnationalism. A rapid change of economic, technological

and social systems is altering also the meaning of local time and geo-

graphical space. What is, in fact, the role and meaning of the ‘local-

ness’ in today’s information society, where everybody’s ’local’ is vir-

tually the same - even to the extent that from a certain point of view

the terms ‘local’ and ‘global’ have become more and more distinct.

A specific geographical location, environmental boundary conditions

such as climate, historical past, or certain demoninators such as the

population size, effect conditions that characterize life in different

parts of the world. As regards all these aspects, Finland and Mexico

can be viewed as extreme opposites. Such they are also in the sense

that they happen to have as their neighboring countries the two oppo-

site actors in world politics – Russia and the United States.

The title of the project is inspired by Slavoj Zizek’s term parallax view,

which Zizek, in turn, derives from a Kantian transcendental illusion.

It implicates how the same specific things can be seen and com-

prehended in different ways – yet as equally realistic – depending

on respective points of view, be they consummerate with regard to

each other or not. The term offers a platform to ask such questions

as: What kinds of local meanings and bases are relevant in the cur-

rent social and cultural structures worldwide, and how, if at all, might

these cultural reflections predict the future of human culture at large?

The expanding knowledge universe of the global information society

has created parameters for extraordinarily rapid transformations all

over the world and at the same time brought closer together differ-

ent social realms such as Mexico and Finland. But does the Utopia of

openness, in which ideas and innovations are freely accessible and

where everyone – in principle – have the same opportunities to use

and produce information, to come true? In the increasingly cynical

world, which only seeks economic profit, also the commodification

of innovations and information has become an important goal of the

global information economy, resulting in a new kind of global hegem-

onic struggle about definitions and the power to define.

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When speaking about structural conditions of the global art world,

the Cuban art critic Gerardo Mosquera has underlined how countries

in peripheries – as most of the countries in the world are - easily re-

main zones of silence, where connections go only to one direction.

Even though the relationship between centers and peripheries has

been getting fuzzy, remote countries still stay apart from each other

as connections are primarily going through and around sort of pyr-

amids of hegemonic structures. Peripheries are not expected to be

able to question and challenge dominant structures nor to speak

about changing them; on the contrary, they are expected to accept

and receive.

Nevertheless, the means, motivations, and material facts of, for ex-

ample, making art in a specific place remain. A decisive effect on the

way that art functions or happens depends also on growing quali-

tative differences between different media in different areas. Both

the selective and uniformizing mechanisms of producing art create

a range of ethical questions that require solutions and strategies to

break it down, and the more the better. From this perspective, Finn-

ish and Mexican artists and cultural actors can be seen sitting in the

same boat in relation to the so-called global art world.

European family portrait photos

The great theme of 19th century history in Europe was the emergence

of small nation states. Milan Kundera, the French writer of Czeck or-

igin who has lived in exile in France since 1975, has described these

small nations as ‘another Europe’, whose evolution runs in counter-

point with that of the large nations. Regarding their cultural condi-

tions, Kundera considers this as “the advantage of smallness: the

wealth in cultural events is on a ‘human scale’; everyone can encom-

pass that wealth, can participate in the totality of cultural life; this is

why, in its best moments, a small nation can bring to mind life in an

ancient Greek city. --- For the arts this historical asynchrony has often

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KINOBOX OBSCURA: KO Silvershadow at the Laboratorio Arte Alameda entrance and KO Casa 3D

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been a fruitful thing, as it made for the curious telescoping of different

eras…; that is their nineteenth century side: an extraordinary sense

of reality, an attachment to the working classes and to popular arts, a

more spontaneous rapport with the audience; these qualities, already

gone from the arts in the large countries“.

Yet, to reflect the other side of the coin Milan Kundera reminds us

that especially in the ‘cosy inner circles’ of these small nations every-

body envies one another and is keeping on eye on everybody else.

This is the reason that has forced many intellectuals and artists to

move abroad from their home countries throughout times, including

Kundera himself. Especially in literature, one of the reasons is also

the language: “… secluded behind their inaccessible languages, the

small European nations are very poorly known elsewhere.” Kundera,

nevertheless, does not see the language barrier in itself as harbor-

ing the main obstacle to international recognition of the art of small

nations. Rather, it is the reverse: “What handicaps their art is that

everything and everyone (critics, historians, compatriots as well as

foreigners) hooks the art onto the great national family portrait photo

and will not let it get away.“

The Finnish context

The current Finnish cultural and mental context has geographic and

cultural backgrounds that go back centuries. Main traces of this Finn-

ish ’family portrait photo’ can be easily depicted using Milan Kunde-

ra’s description. Throughout history the worst danger in the Finnish

culture has been a kind of self-content inwardness. Getting stuck

has been guaranteed for ideological reasons, to protect the purity of

the ‘Finnishness’ or some mystical originality, instead of admitting

that the cultural base of this relatively small region is being built on

intermingling of both Eastern European-Baltic and Western Europe-

an-Scandinavian influences. Temptations to build walls against the

outer world have also been great when connections are not smooth

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and easy, for instance for geographical reasons. For too easily and

for too many also that ‘cosy inner circle’ – as Kundera defined small

nations’ own cultural elites – has been considered a sufficient refer-

ence group and a mirror.

Finland’s geographical position between East and West has through

its history strongly influenced boundary conditions of its cultural and

political foundations, from both directions. Sweden, at the height of

its power, and Russia throughout history have competed for influence

in this cultural transition zone. At times Finland has been represent-

ed as an outpost of the West, at other times as an edge of the East.

The then President of Finland, J.K. Paasikivi, crystallized this position

in his famous saying in the aftermath of the World War II: “We cannot

change geography”.

As a national entity Finland emerged gradually from the ruins of dis-

integrating empires. As late as the 19th century, Finland was part of

Sweden. During the six centuries of Swedish rule the country had

only local governing bodies, but since 1809, as an autonomous Grand

Duchy of Russia, Finland gradually got a central administration, its

own currency, postal and custom services, armed forces and fixed

borders. Finland got unified both geographically and administratively.

Within the world political constellation of the time, it was in Russia’s

interests – at the first stage – to favor the development of Finnish cul-

ture, since it was the best way to increase the gulf between Finland

and its previous mother country. The relatively great degree of auton-

omy lasted until the 1860’s, which along with the period’s national-

istic ideologies laid grounds for needs to define the ‘Finnishness’, to

’belong’ somewhere.

The first real needs to find historical connections and ties of relation-

ship were born in the beginning of the 19th century. At that time, it

was believed that linguistic relatedness also meant genetic and cul-

tural relatedness, and so the Finnish language was a central start-

ing point in the efforts to define the Finnish specificity. Even though

24 P A R A L L A X

Swedish preserved its position as the official language on the occa-

sion when the ruler became replaced from the Swedish king to the

Russian tsar, it wasn’t taken into account now in the search of the

‘genuine’ in Finland. But where then to seek for close relatives? The

Finnish language was known to differ strongly from both western Eu-

ropean languages and eastern, Slavic languages.

Against the background of this authenticity problem, it is easy to un-

derstand how important an event for the Finnish self-esteem it was in

the beginning of the 19th century to ‘detect’ the Hungarians, an old

European civilization, as close lingual relatives for the Finns. The Hun-

garians, in turn, who also were in search of their own roots, tried to

prove the claim wrong; it would have been much more noble for them

to find common roots even with the Huns and the Turks than with

the Nordic barbarians who were told to be drinking seal drippings.

In 1844, the Finnish historian M.A. Castrén, when searching con-

nections to Altai languages, wrote enthusiastically to his colleague

J.V. Snellman, another major figure among the national awakeners:

“(W)e are not just a lonely ’marshland people’ that is torn out from

the rest of the world and world history, but we are related to at least

one sixth of mankind”.

Since then it has been proved that relatedness of language does not

automatically imply genetic or cultural relationship, for instance in the

form of an ancient common culture. Due to the long common history

and common natural conditions, Finland is a very Nordic country by

its social structures and institutions such as religions and laws. So

Finnish and Swedish languages are semantically very close to each

other even if they differ from each other grammatically completely.

Artists created a self-image for a nascent nation

Since the turn of the 20th century, amid international influences and

national tumultuous conditions, the arts had a substantial role in the

25P A R A L L A X

birth process of Finland as a political entity. An old, existing historical

background had to be substituted with a new, invented and rapidly

constructed figment of a cultural identity. An artist was considered to

be an interpreter of this nation.

In the 1880s realism in the form of outdoor painting and its naturalis-

tically toned aspirations were still adopted from Paris, the European

art center of that time. It was, however, self-evident that after their

studies, the artists were assumed to return back home, where na-

tional themes of pathetic and patriotic character became ever more

important in their search for the un-spoilt real life in the backwoods.

Internationally speaking already the 1890s started to be something

else – universally orientated spiritualism, neo-romanticism, and sym-

bolism. In Finland, under heavy political pressures of Russianisation,

national ideals firmly prevailed and retained their position much

longer than in many other countries.

In these special political circumstances of the early 1890s a group

of young artists, composers and writers – from the composer Jean

Sibelius to the painter Axel Gallén (later Akseli Gallen-Kallela), who

was to visualize the new, primal Finnish identity and national myth –

founded a group of Young Finnish Circle. The circle was to become

Finland’s most significant cultural-political agent against the Russian

panslavism. In the beginning of their activities, the ideology of the

circle was defined as progressiveness and liberalism, and contacts

abroad, mainly to Paris, were considered important. All in all, in terms

of the arts, the years 1880-1910 are considered the ‘Golden Time’

in the Finnish history; its earlier phase is also called the ‘Karelianist

movement’ after the name of Karelia, an eastern province of Finland

at that time – an area where the poems of the Finnish national epic

Kalevala were collected.

The unforeseen period of cultural development was exceptionally

open to international influences, profiting from interaction between

the East and the West. In a similar way as the national epic Kaleva-

26 P A R A L L A X

la follows international types of myths and tales, also most of the

stylistic devices Akseli Gallen-Kallela used in his folklore mysticism

were influenced by the mainstream trends of his own period. In his

vision new and old got mixed up in a complicated weave of allegories

and cosmic visions. International influences and national needs were

combined in an original synthesis, in which the desire for independ-

ence frequently attained a hidden symbolic character.

A remarkable culmination in the building process of the Finnish iden-

tity was gained in 1900 in the Paris World Exhibition, where Finland

succeeded in getting its own pavilion in spite of not being yet an in-

dependent country. The building was designed by three young archi-

tects, Herman Gesellius, Armas Lindgren and Eliel Saarinen in the na-

tional romantic style. The frescoes by Akseli Gallen-Kallela – through

his imagery for the national epic Kalevala – symbolized the struggle

against Russian oppression. The project to strengthen the Finnish na-

tional identity gained enormous international resonance and provid-

ed resources for the Finns to build up self-esteem and gain courage

to believe in their own significance.

Socially, the end of the 19th century had seen the growth of mass

organizations, such as the temperance and labor movements, all of

which developed with a nationalist undertone. The general unrest

that broke out in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century had re-

verberations in Finland in the form of increased social-political con-

sciousness and ever more vocal complaints about social inequality

and injustice. The increasingly tense political situation brought the

general strike to Finland from the Russian motherland in 1905.

When Finland got a new opportunity to present Finnish art in the Paris

World Exhibition in 1908, great hopes were set on it to become a

much-needed international breakthrough. Meanwhile art in France

and other continental countries had, however, dramatically changed

to new directions and conceptions. Symbolism was to be replaced by

different forms of abstract art and avantgarde movements that turn

27P A R A L L A X

by turn radically changed the concepts of art. Finnish art was now

seen as water under the bridge. The criticism was a great disappoint-

ment at home, and the exhibition can be seen as an end of s an era.

Along with the emergence of nationalistic ideologies in Europe and in

connection with the October revolution in Russia, Finland gained her

independence in 1917. Soon, however, the declaration of independ-

ence was followed by a traumatic civil war, which demanded a total

of 37 000 casualties, leaving deep wounds and social problems for

decades to come. The fresh nation was divided to the core.

In the arts, despite the early, relatively open and innovative years of

the 1910s, traumatic experiences of the civil war broke the national

integration and the position of the arts remained very complex. After

independence in 1917 political trends for an afresh and deepened

ideology of Finnishness won the hegemony. Temptations for building

walls and turning inwards were supported by the geographical dis-

tance. Naturally there were artists interested in international move-

ments and interaction, but the opposition to them took soon the up-

per hand.

Unavoidable geography

After gaining her independence, Finland’s tumultuous relationship

with the Soviet Union got a new culmination in the wars in 1939–1945.

After the Winter War, fought in the winter of 1939–1940, more than

400 000 people, including most of Vyborg’s inhabitants, were evac-

uated from their homes. By May 1944, about 282 000 had moved

back to Karelia, only to be forced to leave their homes again during

the Continuation War in the summer of 1944. Finland lost areas in the

eastern part of the country, but managed to save her independence.

During the Cold War Finland’s stance in regard to the Soviet Union

was seen by others as an obedient ally, a sort of tightrope walker be-

28 P A R A L L A X

tween East and West. In Finland, a certain acceptance for political

compromises has been taken on as a sheer necessity and thus as

selfprotection. One parameter was the famous YYA Agreement (the

Agreement of Friendship and Collaboration) between Finland and the

Soviet Union that guaranteed to the Soviet Union a strong control over

Finland‘s orientations.

The decades after the Second World War have often been called an

era of Finlandization – a term that described the Finnish foreign pol-

icy that by all means avoided to annoy the Eastern neighbour or to

damage the relations between the two countries. It created an at-

mosphere colored by a combination of fear, pessimism, self-censor-

ship, and silence. Finnish author Sofi Oksanen defines the period as

one of ”lessened independence, derogated democracy and strangled

freedom of speech”.

The internal reasons for this state of affairs were naturally based on

Finland’s geographical location. Throughout the country’s history –

during its periods of autonomy and independence, and especially af-

ter the Second World War – this fact has set special requirements as

regards the orientation towards Russia.

In this atmosphere, nationalistic views remained strong in all forms

of arts. How modernism finally got rooted in Finland and gained the

position on which even today’s postmodern Finnish culture relies on,

opens up a new point of view to the problematics of detecting a na-

tion’s ‘own’ characteristics.

For instance concrete art, which gradually after the wars gained a

very strong position in Finland, broke its way into the fortresses of

Finnishness very slowly and erratically. Contrary to the other Nordic

countries, Finland had no traditions in this respect. Ironically, this

specific form of modern art that was to become especially Finnish,

was in fact based on Finnish-Swedish modernism, mediated by some

Swedish-speaking individuals, whose strong convictions and financial

29P A R A L L A X

resources made possible their pioneering work from the late 1930s.

The strength and basis of the Finnish-Swedish cultural expansion has

been interpreted through a position of being a social alien in one’s

own country – a rootlessness that was reflected as emotional dis-

tance. But at the same time, the position made it possible to adopt

the position of an ‘outsider’ who can act as a mediator of international

thinking. Finnish-Swedish writer Mikael Enckell has said that “a coun-

try that doesn’t exist” becomes a place to escape to and a heimat to

one, who is in exile in one’s innermost realm.

Much has happened since the days when a young Finnish-Swedish

artist Lars-Gunnar Nordström (1924 – 2014) during the Second World

War read about Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Juan Gris from

black and white books and imagined that the original paintings must

be brilliantly colorful. While saving up money to go to Paris he painted

his concrete art as he imagined it – with red, green, yellow, black and

white colors. After the war borders opened up and he went on the trip.

We can just imagine his astonishment when he discovered that the

original paintings he had admired were, in fact, gray.

In the transition zone of world politics

The tension between the East and the West remains as a boundary

condition for Finland, only its degree varies according to historical

circumstances. An aspect of the cultural development that is often

obscured, can be explained by the location. Regardless of the moth-

er country at the time, historically the location has enabled lively cul-

tural interaction in different directions, transcending state, linguistic

and national borders alike. For example the city of Vyborg (Viipuri in

Finnish), an amazingly cosmopolitan trade and cultural center at the

height of its history, had of old a mixed population of Russian, French,

German and Finnish speaking inhabitants. It had belonged from the

Middle Ages to Sweden, from 1710 to Russia and from 1809 to the

autonomous Grand Dutchy of Finland and from 1917 to independent

30 P A R A L L A X

Finland, which lost it for the first time to the Soviet Union in 1940, got

back for a while, just to lose it again in 1944 in the Second World War.

During the wars the city was badly demolished and afterwards, as a

neglected Western border corner of the vast Soviet Union, its position

changed completely.

In international politics, the term Glasnost became a catchword al-

most overnight in the wake of the perestroika of the Mikhail Gor-

bachev-era Soviet Union in the 1980’s. It became to symbolise a third

way for the then Soviet Union to react to the economic backwardness

of the country as well as the necessity of political transformation and

new challenges of meeting the West. This was in stark contrast to the

closed, bureaucratic and authoritarian system of the previous govern-

ment. The breakdown of the Berlin Wall in 1989 wiped out the Iron

Curtain that had divided Europe into two ideological constellations.

The era of the Cold War was supposed to be over in 1990.

From an international viewpoint, the dissolution of the Soviet Union

was interpreted as a victory in the Cold War and Russia was assumed

to gradually become “like everyone else”. Today we know how pre-

sumptions may take completely different roads. The flow of events in

the Soviet Union took a rapid course, and after a failed attempt for a

coup, the Soviet Union broke down in December 1991. Mikhail Gor-

bachev resigned from the presidency.

In Russia, the liberal period ended within a few years, on the occa-

sion of the wars in Tšetšenia that started in 1994. In a short time the

foreign and security policies strenghtened dramatically and Russia

started to develop a new approach around the core of reinforcing the

country’s position as a superpower.

Created from the ashes of the unexpected collapse of the Soviet Un-

ion 24 years ago, The Russian Federation had suffered great loss-

es as regards its authority and previous position as an indisputable

great power. In the course of the 1990s the Russian society at large

31P A R A L L A X

had sunk into exceptional distress. Still, however, it remained a su-

perpower in regards to its enormous natural resources within a vast

Eurasian region that spans two continents. It is also an unconditional

military power, possessing strategic nuclear weapons which in the-

ory have the capacity to destroy the entire human civilization. In this

respect, Russia is a superpower which has to be taken into account

in world politics.

Today, Russia is again completely different from what it was in 2000

when Vladimir Putin was elected president for his first period. There

are undeniably strong political motivations within Russia’s governing

structures to regain the lost position as an uncompromised super-

power in world politics and see the former Soviet republics back in

its sphere of influence. To some Russians the return of the distinc-

tive marks of the Soviet power, including the cult of personality, has

meant positive national self-esteem and stability, for others a loss

of freedom of expression, human rights and centralisation of natural

resources to the hands of few. Ultra-nationalistic tone in rhetoric, ac-

companied by its media coverage, has been drawn to the extremity.

Lately, in the course of events of the Ukranian crisis, a juxtaposition of

the Cold War has literally returned to the international public sphere

in a complex way. Russia has gone further with a growing arrogance

and through acts that speak about disregard towards generally ap-

proved international regulation. In the West, attitudes and discus-

sion on Russia have been marked for a long time by an increasingly

critical tone, culminating so far to trade sanctions enforced by the EU

and the United States. Both NATO and Russia are carrying on major

military exercises on both sides of the border areas between the EU

and Russia.

When it comes to Finland, the Ukranian crisis has cast Finland again

into the frontline between the East and the West. The international

trade sanctions againts Russia have already caused great losses al-

so for the countries setting the sanctions, Finland being in frontline

32 P A R A L L A X

also in this sense. Recently there has been an increasing discussion

on geopolitics and the term of Finlandization has returned to public

rhetoric, especially when discussing – for or against – Finland’s pos-

sible membership in NATO. In both viewpoints, were they based on

grim historical experiences or current issues in terms of risk avoid-

ance, extended security or economic and energy interdependen-

cies, the worst scenario for the country is a full-blown armed conflict

with Russia.

At the same time we must remember that Russia has become one

of Finland’s most important trade partners, which in itself is a sign

that politics and economics of the neighboring countries have grown

strongly intertwined and interdependent. In this respect the relations

of Finland to Russia have developed positively. The official aim has

been to develop and support partnership on many other dimensions,

too, especially in the arts and culture. In the fields of visual arts, true

direct interraction and collaboration between artists and cultural ac-

tors has been somewhat theoretical and in practice relatively con-

stricted, not least due to bureaucratic and expensive visa regulations

of travel arrangements. The train connection is easy, it takes only

three and half hours to get from Helsinki to St. Petersburg.

Between the wide tides of post-national conceptualism and pleasures of isolationism

In agreement with the general political situation, Finnish cultural life

has tremendously changed since the ‘national awakening’ in the pre-

vious turn of the century to current times. Yet, a comparison of the

past and current times shows interesting parallels that reflect a num-

ber of more fluctuating conditions, too – both from periods that have

produced remarkable art, but also from periods of stagnation. Cul-

tures always develop and create their ‘own’ in interaction with oth-

ers; they are in their heights when being able to mirror themselves in

relation to others and intermingle influences from different periods

and directions.

A review in the Flash Art magazine, on the occasion of the opening ex-

hibition of the new contemporary art museum Kiasma, a department

of the National Gallery, in Helsinki in 1998, brought indirectly up the

need of ‘own’ characteristics that are set to the arts in the globalized

world: “A remote northern nation attempts to establish the perime-

ters of its own culture, between the wide tides of post-national con-

ceptualism and pleasures of isolationism. A brand new contemporary

art museum filled with obligatory works of established foreign stars

but also giving indigenous culture suitable representation – perhaps

because today’s international intellectual fashion loves nothing more

than the ‘local’.“

A little later the article describes a video installation by Finnish artist

Pekka Niskanen, whose work examines the influences that erode the

sexual identities of members of his family. The title of the work As a

Matter of Fat refers to obesity, a familiar theme for Niskanen. Fatness

is, as we know, a form and an ecstatic state of mind that brings to-

gether western middle-class affluence and ill-health.

The article analyzes the installation as follows: “Niskanen’s installa-

tion is particularly effective in this context as one of its themes is mis-

interpretation and isolation. --The story becomes cumulatively more

intriguing -- while remaining oblique. The project manages to be both

familiar – with established genres – while peculiar and highly Finnish,

a winning formula which makes one genuinely want to see it again.“

Why Pekka Niskanen’s work, then, and especially through an outsid-

er’s eyes, can be seen as ’highly Finnish’ is a good question, but dif-

ficult to answer. Maybe because his work derives from certain ways

of looking at things – the ways, which give an idea for identity not as

one uniform thing, but as a nexus at which various themes converge;

a soup of contemporary dialects and influences.

33P A R A L L A X

34 P A R A L L A X

The article reminds of a sort of catalyst – ‘the winning formula’ – that

requires abilities both ‘to stand out’ and to be open for influences at

the same time as preconditions for significant, characteristic art in

the post-national, postmodern world which – due to the ever more

increasing spread of communications technology – is simultaneous-

ly shrinking and expanding, fragmenting and getting more uniform.

From this perspective, the emphasis of multiculturalism is, in fact, on

indignity and the inherent traits of specific cultures.

(Art)Perspectives of today

In the post-national, multicultural world, in which there no more are

clear value centers and where difference and pluralism are accepted,

even expected, the nature of globality has changed and cultural inter-

action has reached a new phase. Geographical, historical, social and

linguistic terms unavoidably do leave their mark on the way artists are

working, anywhere – hence making the whole world to appear from

one point in somewhat different light than from any other point. Even

the most global phenomena may have extremely specific expressions

in specific spaces. These are the reasons why local and global still

matter, even though they are deeply connected and their interaction

is becoming very complex.

On the one hand, the role of place and geographies of making art

emphasises how local can only exist to the extent it is international;

on the other hand, the local is what makes the life of a certain space

specific, but it is the relationship to the global that creates resonance.

Furthermore, coming to grips with today’s challenges is made more

complicated particularly by the fact that traditional mechanisms

come second in the political systems based on supra-national blocks

and international markets. This effect has been felt especially in the

arts, where modernistic principles based on autonomy of creative

work are no longer adequate.

35P A R A L L A X

Besides a pure global market, especially since the 1990s, the in-

creasingly instrumental use of the arts has taken the upper hand

also on national level and shaped cultural development at large all

over the world. The common denominator has been an increasingly

prevalent perception – or assertion – that the arts and culture must

contribute to economic growth, exports, employment, and material

well-being. As a result, culture has emerged as a visiting card in vari-

ous kinds of branding efforts that are accompanied by an emergence

of new governance structures. Also governmental cultural policies

have been harnessed to serve identity politics or ‘nation building’ of

the 21st century.

The need to be seen on the one hand, and geographical remoteness

on the other hand also give rise to other kinds of paradoxes. We have

to ask, what are the possibilities for countries ‘out-of-the-way‘ to react

to the standards of the trans-national contemporary art? The threat

of narrowness always exists: isn’t it true that to get over our own com-

plexes of a geographic remoteness we often try to resemble others,

as much as possible. But there is no use in following fashions: those

who create the fashions are always ahead.

At the same time, in order to be able to participate in an international

discussion, the art from remote countries should be able to get over

the models of international centers. Facing this paradox, Finnish art-

ist, researcher and curator Jyrki Siukonen has a bit cynically stated:

“We Finns will never attract any attention or make it out there if we

don’t talk about what others are talking about. A good deal of today’s

Finnish art is upbeat and international, but artists all over the world

are equally capable of producing upbeat, international-looking art,

which means that our art doesn’t stand out as being identifiably Finn-

ish. --- Most contemporary installations are interchangeable, mine

included: I could send mine to Portugal and some Portuguese artist

could send his own installation back in exchange, and nothing, in

principle, would change. The discourse wouldn’t change, and neither

would the look of the work, or even its price.”

36 P A R A L L A X

In other words, art is not only reproducible – as Walter Benjamin not-

ed – but it tends to become exchangeable at a large, even global level.

As a counterweight, however, the basic question remains: Are there

true conditions for a belief and confidence to create ’unexchangeable’

art that is able to reach new contexts and make new liaisons outside,

besides the national contexts? Such a confidence can no nation or

area itself achieve alone – today, perhaps more than ever, one’s own

identity reflects through others.

This is the issue the Finnish artistic projects in Parallax address.

Grown within and from their own historical, social, and geographical

contexts, they got contextualized in a fresh way by the architectural

beauty of a sixteenth-century church building in a historical district

of Mexico City. A cultural contrast between the works of the exhibi-

tion and the venue could not have been bigger. This created a unique

atmosphere, as if underlining the very core of the project: there is no

single viewpoint that could define the state of things. Instead – based

on different influences – there are several ways to approach things

and phenomena. Together they can create a sort of collective human

‘subconscious’ of experiences and memories that affect people all

over the world.

ARTISTS

37P A R A L L A X

38 P A R A L L A X

Three Love Songs

Three-synched channel video installation

08:41 min

2010

video stills

ADEL ABIDIN Born 1973 in Baghdad, Iraq lives and works in Helsinki, Finland

39P A R A L L A X

40 P A R A L L A X

Q4 – The Last Quarter Year

Site-specific 2-channel video installation

(music video animation, based on Quartarius, 2009)

6:30 min

2012

installation view

CLEANING WOMENFounded 1996

CW01 [Risto Puurunen, born 1972], CW03 [Timo Kinnunen, born 1977],

CW04 [Tero Vänttinen, born 1977], Juho Pöysti [born 1975]

41P A R A L L A X

42 P A R A L L A X

A Prophet [ 42 ]

Video installation and photography

23:24 min

2011

video still

Markku Mäkinen [ 43 ]

B / W photograph

100 x 85 cm

2010

VELI GRANÖ Born 1960 in Kajaani lives and works in Porvoo, Finland

43P A R A L L A X

44 P A R A L L A X

Cyclone, 2014

Stainless steel

400 x 400 x 120 cm

2014

Photo © Tommi Grönlund

TOMMI GRÖNLUND & PETTERI NISUNENBorn 1967 in Turku & 1962 in Vantaa, Finland live and work in Helsinki

45P A R A L L A X

TOMMI GRÖNLUND & PETTERI NISUNEN

46 P A R A L L A X

Working In the Rose Garden [ 46 ]

Video

05:00 min

2013

video still

DZAMIL KAMANGER: Mexican Passport

(From the series All Fake Passports Are Always Handicraft) [ 47 ]

Bead knitting, 32 x 16 cm

2014

KALLE HAMM & DZAMIL KAMANGERBorn in 1969 in Rauma, Finland & 1948 in Mariwan, Iranlive and work in Helsinki

47P A R A L L A X

48 P A R A L L A X

Garden of Invasive Alien Species [ 48 ]

Video

13:00 min

2013

video still

Removing Defenses [ 49 ]

Video

06:00 min

2014

video still

49P A R A L L A X

50 P A R A L L A X

Sensitometric Experiment in Polaroid

Polaroid photograph and text

61 x 51 cm

2012

MINNA HENRIKSSON

Sensitometric experiment in Polaroid

Sensitometry is the study of the effect of light on light-sensitive materials developed in the 1890s by F. Hurter and V. Driffield.

Kodwo Eshun argues that the white skin has set the standard for film, film as such is not neutral, and that, depicting mechanisms of racialization, one has to intervene with the whole field of what is called sensitometry; the sensitivity of light to skin. Eshun states:

“These are not identitarian questions, they are technological and formal questions of embodiment whose resonance is political and spatial.”

In Helsinki, in the newspaper archives of the Finnish National Library a persistent malfunction appears in the latest-technology brand-new Minolta MS 7000 MK II microfilm scanners: when scanning newspaper image with dark skinned person the scanner automatically turns the image to its negative making the skin white and all the other information reversed along with it. This is a small occurrence, that can be manually corrected each time, but a clear example of the white skin setting the standard according to the logic of which the machine operates.

Having a model with black skin in front of the lens of the 20×24” Polaroid camera, Polacolor P3 (ER) film was exposed with 600 mm lens at 44” bellows, w/15 green filtration, .022” gap, effective ISO 8, f11 5/6 @ 1/125s. These were defined as the ideal settings for photographing white skin in the studio environment. As result, with black skin the density change of the film material barely exceeds the threshold of the film, and the image remains too dark.

The usual trick in photographing black skin would be to open the aperture one or two additional stops from the ‘normal’. This was left undone, in hopes, in the very technology and the film medium, to be able to illuminate something entirely different; the racial politics that the Polaroid Company was engaged with at the same period of time as introducing the rare and exclusive 20×24” camera:

In 1970 the Polaroid Corporation was the first company, doing business in South Africa, that was target of extensive international protest movement and boycotting with demands to stop selling the ID-2 system to the state of South Africa. The ID-2 system was used for documentation purposes in the infamous passbook – essential tool for control of the Apartheid, and obligatory for any African to carry with them at all times. Finally, in 1976, the company terminated its business ties with the state of South Africa as result of continuous pressure from the protesters, particularly from the Polaroid Revolutionary Workers Movement.

Born 1976, Oulu lives and works in Helsinki, Finland

51P A R A L L A X

52 P A R A L L A X

Remedies

Video

11:11 min

2011

video still

SASHA HUBER & PETRI SAARIKKO Born 1975 in Uster, Switzerland & born in 1973 in Helsinki live and work in Helsinki, Finland

53P A R A L L A X

54 P A R A L L A X

A View from the Other Side

Digital animation

70:00 min

2011

IC–98Founded 1998

Visa Suonpää – born 1968 in Tampere

Patrik Söderlund – born 1974 in Turku

live and work in Turku, Finland

55P A R A L L A X

56 P A R A L L A X

All That Speak the Language Minus 30

Photographs, sound samples, cardboard, tape

Site-spefific installation

Dimensions variable

2010

ELINA JUOPPERIBorn 1975 in Oulu lives and works in Helsinki, Finland

57P A R A L L A X

58 P A R A L L A X

I Love My Job

Video installation

25:00 min

2012

video stills

TELLERVO KALLEINEN & OLIVER KOCHTA–KALLEINEN Born 1975 in Lohja, Finland & 1971 in Dresden, Germany live and work in Helsinki, Finland

59P A R A L L A X

60 P A R A L L A X

KINOBOX OBSCURA

Team: Risto Puurunen II Juho Pöysti II Mika Palonen II Tom Pesch

Site-specific installation. Film cases, screens, optical lenses

2014

KINOBOX OBSCURATeam: Risto “CW01” Puurunen (born 1972), Juho “Poesiloe” Pöysti (born 1975), Mika Palonen (born 1987), Tom Pesch (born 1980)

61P A R A L L A X

62 P A R A L L A X

Flood

Site-specific installation, plastic and cardboard

Dimensions variable

2013

installation view

Photo: Veli Granö

KAISU KOIVISTOBorn 1962 in Seinäjoki lives and works in Helsinki, Finland

63P A R A L L A X

64 P A R A L L A X

Flora & Fauna [ 64 ]

5:59 min

1965

film still

The Punch Tape of Life [ 65 ]

8:03 min

1964

film still

ERKKI KURENNIEMI Born 1941 in Hämeenlinna lives and works in Helsinki, Finland

65P A R A L L A X

66 P A R A L L A X

Bark Boat

Video installation

14:47 min

2010

video still

ANTTI LAITINEN Born 1975 in Raahe lives and works in Somero, Finland

67P A R A L L A X

68 P A R A L L A X

Globe – Encyclopedia [ 69 ]

Video, 06:05 min

1995

video still

Circle of The Day [ 68 ]

Video, 02:45 min

1993

video still

SEPPO RENVALL Born 1963 in Helsinki lives and works in Helsinki, Finland

69P A R A L L A X

70 P A R A L L A X

The Most Electrified Town in Finland

3-channel video installation

15:00 min

Dimensions variable

Photo: Jussi Eerola

2004 – 2012

Photo: Jussi Eerola

MIKA TAANILA Born 1965 in Helsinki lives and works in Helsinki, Finland

71P A R A L L A X

72 P A R A L L A X

Snow Business

Site-specific performance

11:00 min

2012

video still

ROI VAARA Born 1953 in Moss, Norway lives and works in Helsinki, Finland

73P A R A L L A X

74 P A R A L L A X

Decedents [ 74 ] Cotton paper

series of 8, each 56 x 38 cm

2012

Steamed-Up Windows Turn into Mirrors [ 75 ]Photography on metallic paper

60 x 45 cm

2014

ELINA VAINIO Born 1981 in Jyväskylä lives and works in Helsinki, Finland

75P A R A L L A X

PUBLIC PROGRAMVIDEO SCREENINGS Laboratorio Arte Alameda

Auditorium 28.5. – 6.7.2014

SEPPO RENVALL

FILM1999, 2000

video, 77:00 min

MIKA TAANILA

All works Courtesy of the Artist

and Kinotar – www.kinotar.fi

A Physical Ring, 2002

35 mm film, 04:00 min

Music by Mika Vainio

Futuro – A New Stance for Tomorrow, 1998


The Future Is Not What It Used To Be, 2002


Optical Sound, 2005

16/35 mm film, 06:00 min

RoboCup99, 2000


Six Day Run, 2012


MIKA TAANILA

Sommerreise, 2006

Featuring ERKKI KURENNIEMI


JAN BARK / ERKKI KURENNIEMI

Spindrift, 1966 / 2013


VELI GRANÖ

A Strange Message from Another Star, 1998

video, 30:00 min

Star Dwellers, 2002

video, 16:00 min

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FINNISH DOCUMENTARY FILMS at CINE TONALÁ, Mexico City

http://cinetonala.mx

KATJA GAURILOFF

Canned Dreams

2011, 81:00 min

Oktober Oy – oktober.fi

JOONAS BERGHÄLL &

MIKA HOTAKAINEN

Steam of Life

2010, 84:00 min


JUHA SUONPÄÄ

Wolfman

2013, 75:00 min


MIKA RONKAINEN

Finnish Blood Swedish Heart

2013, 90:00 min

Klaffi Productions – klaffi.com

TO BID FAREWELL TO PARALLAX –

GEOGRAPHICAL RESONANCES, ON SUNDAY,

JULY 6, A MARATHON OF CONTEMPORARY

FINNISH VIDEO TOOK PLACE FEATURING

PIECES BY THE ARTISTS:

Adel Abidin:

Ping-Pong, 2009, 03:44 min

Cleaning Women Compilation:

Scythians (Live at Retretti, 2012),

Video, 07:20 / E1 (Live at Kiasma, 2012),

05:33 min

Sasha Huber:

Louis Who? What you should know about

Louis Agassiz, 2010, Intervention, Praça

Agassiz, Rio de Janeiro, 03:50 min

Tellervo Kalleinen &

Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen:

Archipelago Science Fiction,

2011, 25:00 min

Seppo Renvall:

Ees taas,

2008, 53:00 min

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78 P A R A L L A X

PARALLAX geographies in resonance – resonancias geográficasLaboratorio Arte Alameda

30.4. – 6.7.2014

The exhibition has been produced by

Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Mexico City

in collaboration with

Artists’ Association of Finland

With the support of:

National Council for Culture and Arts CONACULTA, Mexico

Nacional Institute of Fine Arts INBA, Mexico

Frame Visual Art Finland

The Finnish Film Foundation

Arts Promotion Centre Finland

AVEK The Promotion Centre for Audiovisual Culture

Ibero 90.9, Mexico

Cine Tonalá, Mexico

Embajada de Finlandia, Mexico

Instituto Iberoamericano de Finlandia

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Technicians

Nicolas Bustos Martinez

Benito Cid Zarate

Natalia Martinez Ordonez

Cecilia Medina Garcia

Fransisco Javier Yáñez

Alejandro Vázquez Zavala

José Contreras Hernández

Visitor Services

Dante Ayala

Sheila Diaz

Ricardo Hernández

Ulises Negrete

Mireya Qintero

Director Tania Aedo

Assistant Director Miranda Ibanez

Administrator José Antonio Hernández

Production Mariana Garcia

Distribution Maru Briones

Educational services Paola Gallardo

Design Leslie Garcia

Press and social networks Melissa Ortiz

Academic Counsellors

Maria Inés Garcia Canal

José Luis Barrios

Fransisco Reyes Palma

Gerardo Suter

Artists’ Association of Finland

Iso Roobertinkatu 3 – 5 A 22

00120 Helsinki, Finland

www.artists.fi

Director Petra Havu

Exhibition Coordinator Marketta Tuomainen

Communications Officer Miisa Pulkkinen

Catalogue Editor Marketta Tuomainen

Catalogue design Sanna Kaitakari / Leslie Garcia

Laboratorio Arte Alameda

Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Mexico City

Dr. Mora 7, Centro Histórico, Ciudad de México 06050

www.artealameda.bellasartes.gob.mx

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PARALLAX


LABORATORIO ARTE ALAMEDA, MEXICO CITY

On view from April 30th until July 6th, 2014

CURATORS

Giovanna Esposito Yussif & Marketta Haila

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82 P A R A L L A X

ADEL ABIDIN II CLEANING WOMEN

VELI GRANÖ II TOMMI GRÖNLUND & PETTERI NISUNEN

KALLE HAMM & DZAMIL KAMANGER II MINNA HENRIKSSON

SASHA HUBER & PETRI SAARIKKO II IC-98 II ELINA JUOPPERI

TELLERVO KALLEINEN & OLIVER KOCHTA-KALLEINEN

KAISU KOIVISTO II ERKKI KURENNIEMI II ANTTI LAITINEN

KINOBOX OBSCURA II SEPPO RENVALL

MIKA TAANILA II ROI VAARA II ELINA VAINIO

TERIKE HAAPOJA

The Party of Others – a political intervention,

part of the public program

PARALLAX - Geographies in Resonance

Documents

Transcript of PARALLAX - Geographies in Resonance