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geographies in resonance – resonancias geográficas
P A R A L L A X
1P A R A L L A X
geographies in resonance – resonancias geográficas
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
2 P A R A L L A X
3P A R A L L A X
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
4 P A R A L L A X
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
5P A R A L L A X
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
6 P A R A L L A X
7P A R A L L A X
8 P A R A L L A X
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
9P A R A L L A X
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.
10 P A R A L L A X
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
11P A R A L L A X
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.
12 P A R A L L A X
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-
13P A R A L L A X
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
14 P A R A L L A X
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.
15P A R A L L A X
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”.
16 P A R A L L A X
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
17P A R A L L A X
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-
18 P A R A L L A X
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.
19P A R A L L A X
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
20 P A R A L L A X
KINOBOX OBSCURA: KO Silvershadow at the Laboratorio Arte Alameda entrance and KO Casa 3D
21P A R A L L A X
22 P A R A L L A X
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
23P A R A L L A X
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
35 mm film, 29:00 min
The Future Is Not What It Used To Be, 2002
35 mm film, 52:00 min
Optical Sound, 2005
16/35 mm film, 06:00 min
RoboCup99, 2000
35 mm film, 25:00 min
Six Day Run, 2012
8 mm film, 14:25 min
MIKA TAANILA
Sommerreise, 2006
Featuring ERKKI KURENNIEMI
16 mm film, 03:00 min
JAN BARK / ERKKI KURENNIEMI
Spindrift, 1966 / 2013
16 mm film, 14:00 min
VELI GRANÖ
A Strange Message from Another Star, 1998
video, 30:00 min
Star Dwellers, 2002
video, 16:00 min
76 P A R A L L A X
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
Oktober Oy – oktober.fi
JUHA SUONPÄÄ
Wolfman
2013, 75:00 min
Oktober Oy – oktober.fi
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
77P A R A L L A X
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
79P A R A L L A X
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
80 P A R A L L A X
PARALLAX
geographies in resonance – resonancias geográficas
LABORATORIO ARTE ALAMEDA, MEXICO CITY
On view from April 30th until July 6th, 2014
CURATORS
Giovanna Esposito Yussif & Marketta Haila
81P A R A L L A X
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