Welcome to the opening on 23/9/2021 from 5pm to 9pm. The opening will be held following current corona recommendations.
Kaisa Illukka's exhibition Tragedy in the Forest considers the connection between loss of forest nature and loss of significance at Yö Galleria 24.9.–10.10.2021.
Forest ecosystems, which have developed over millions of years, are declining. Simultaneously the reasonable, sanctifying, and imaginative relationship to forest is also impoverishing. The human culture has grown up with a rich inter-species environment; so, what will an intensive forestry mind look like? Anthropocentric forest explanation echoes on the forest stage, like the hubris of a confident tragic hero just before the revenge of the gods. On the other hand, maybe it’s a comedy, or a contemporary performance of identity?
The exhibition consists of quotes collected from the Finnish forest debate and communication, embroidered as wall cloth aphorisms, endlessly repeating one truth. The time of Man, social media commentary and forest industry is fast; the time of forest, evolution and embroidery is slow.
Illukka’s home region has a history of traditional Finnish oral poetry. Therefore, she wonders what a poetry collector would find in today’s forest speech landscapes, and whether it could be left as an intellectual legacy for future generations. Changes in forest, mind and language affect each other.
Kaisa Illukka (b. 1978) is a performance and visual artist with theatre stage design background. Central themes in her work have been the intersection of human and natural time and space, and development of performativity and emotionality in nature relationships.
The texts of the works have been collected from the Finnish forest debate, therefore they are in Finnish.
Mirva Niskanen's Layers
Mirva Niskanen (b. 1991) is a visual artist living in Tampere and born in Vihti.
She is currently inspired by electrical cabinets and the traces of life and people left in them in the urban landscape.
"I'm collecting material from the urban environment - literally. I've been collecting stickers, posters and pieces from electrical cabinets. I want to find materials that please me, but I'm not very precise about what comes out of the cabinets. I'll take whatever comes off them, a poster of an event that has already taken place, the one that is about to come loose anyway ... "
The works in the exhibition are paintings in which, in addition to pens and spray paint, traces left by human remain found in the urban area have been glued and pasted. You can find familiar advertisements or posters, and some messages in the works. Mainly, however, the paintings seek to present the cityscape and people’s ideas as they are.
“The effects of the environment on the mind and art have inspired things to do. It is easier to notice changes in my art than in my mind and behavior. The concrete in the works clarifies the abstract view. The best things happen by accident, usually in the studio."
The exhibition has been supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland.
Yö Galleria
Lönnrotinkatu 33,
00180 Helsinki