POSSIBLE WORLDS – Jaakko Autio & Mika Vesalahti (Joint exhibition). 7th December 2024 – 2nd February 2025 @ NART – Narva Art Residency Gallery, Joala 18, 20103 Narva Estonia.

Sound Artist: Jaakko Autio / Music Composer: Jussi Mattila / Singers: Narva music school Ensemble «Yakub-bend-A»: Alissa Milovidova, Valentina Starodubtseva, Evelina Koop, Kristel Treinbuk, Sille Reinsalu, Marija Eroshkina. Teacher Alla Yakubova / Nomad Vocals: Tatu Huotarinen, Emma Jämsén, Kaisa Karhunen, Juulia Karppi, Vilppu Kekkonen, Lasse Kettunen, Eero Lahtinen, Tiina Leskinen, Emma Pitkänen, Joona Rytkönen, Jaakko Örmälä, Kasper Omenasaari & choir director Jussi Mattila. / Audio Walk Narrator: Eduard Tee / Installation Helpers: Anastasija Zhitinskaya, Veronika Kulpina & Reinhold Oster / Thank You: Johanna Rannula, Aleksei Ivanov / The work has been supported by: TAIKE & Frame Contemporary Art Finland.

Possible Worlds at Narva Art Gallery (7 December 2024 – 2 February 2025) was a joint spatial exploration with Mika Vesalahti, bringing together sound installations and paintings—each addressing chaos, violence, and the possibilities of art in their own way. For me, the exhibition was an opportunity to explore the relationships between humanity, sensory space, and mutual understanding, as well as the diverse ways in which we can experience and make sense of the world together.

My works in the exhibition reflect an ongoing interest in creating experiential and communal spaces where people can feel connected to each other and to the places they inhabit. I approach sound and technology as tools to open new perspectives on humanity and empathy. My art is grounded in radical empathy and a desire to listen to the silence that connects us. The audio walk, included in the exhibition, invited viewers to realize that “we are all art.”

This approach took on new dimensions in Narva—a city where borders are not only geographical, but also present in everyday life, language, and identity. During my residency at NART, I found myself in the midst of a layered reality: Russian- and Estonian-speaking Narvans living side by side, often in their own circles, while an artist from elsewhere is always both an observer and a participant. In OrigiNation and On The Border, local Narva choirs and the visiting Finnish Nomad Vocals choir improvised and sang together, forming a space where every voice is heard both as itself and as part of a larger whole.

My role was to build spaces where people could meet, sing, and breathe together—without external boundaries or habitual roles defining everything. The process was sometimes tentative and surprising: cultural differences, new ways of collaborating, and the unfamiliarity of contemporary art challenged all of us. But it was in these moments that genuine interaction and a sense of community emerged, built through small, concrete encounters.

Possible Worlds and the Meeting Point piece bring together these experiences and people: Narvan singers, Finnish visitors, listeners, and passersby. The exhibition invites us to consider what kinds of possible worlds we can build together when we pause to truly listen to one another without ready-made answers. In Narva, I learned that such a space is possible—even if only for a moment.

Works in the Exhibition

OrigiNation (2022)
A 20-channel sound installation exploring how music can create connection and understanding across borders. Singers from Narva and Finland improvised together, resulting in a soundscape that transcends geography and reflects both the hopes and conflicts present in Narva’s unique cultural crossroads. The process was as important as the result, and the work features a new version of the shared Finnish and Estonian anthem melody23.

Nimitta
A generative media installation featuring a Vantablack-painted black sphere that responds to sound and the presence of the audience. The work uses the metaphor of a black hole to explore the unknown and the limits of perception, inviting visitors to question reality and their own interpretations.

InterSpace
A central sculpture symbolizing the meeting of artistic perspectives and the diversity of reality. The shape of the work changes depending on the viewer’s point of view, emphasizing openness to new perspectives and the importance of the search itself.

Silent Dialogues
An audio piece for headphones, offering a moment of calm and reflection in the exhibition space. Guided exercises encourage listeners to focus on their breathing and presence, providing tools for deepening one’s experience of art and the world.

Mika Vesalahti

In Possible Worlds, Mika Vesalahti’s paintings from the series Tritonus (2024) and Machine of the Gods of Hell (2020) enter into a dialogue with the sound installations in the exhibition space. Vesalahti’s works grapple with the chaos, violence, and existential conflicts of our times—questioning whether painting can address the world’s violence, reconcile contradictions, and even become a healing process. His expressive, layered technique mirrors the complexity and turbulence of contemporary existence, bringing together moments of darkness and flashes of light, brutality and beauty.

In the exhibition, Vesalahti’s paintings and my sound installations create an interplay between visual turbulence and sonic togetherness. While his canvases reflect the pressure of violent forces and the fragmentation of harmony, the sound works invite the visitor to experience moments of connection, empathy, and collective presence. The central InterSpace sculpture acts as a bridge between our artistic perspectives, encouraging viewers to move between these worlds—between the unresolved questions and tensions of the paintings and the fleeting sense of unity and hope in the sound environment.

This dialogue between painting and sound asks: Can art help us face the contradictions of our time? Can it bring us closer to understanding, or even to healing, in the midst of uncertainty? In Narva—a place marked by borders, histories, and shifting identities—these questions resonate with particular urgency. Possible Worlds invites the visitor to inhabit this space between, to listen and look, and to imagine new possibilities where chaos and connection meet.