Narva Art Residency · 7 December 2024 – 3 February 2025 · Part IV of the Border Series · Suomeksi
Possible Worlds grew from another return to Narva. Conversations about space travel, the former Soviet Union and the question of homeland brought different memories into the same room. The exhibition asked how one object or place changes when seen from another position.
It was a joint exhibition with the painter Mika Vesalahti. My part brought together a sculpture, a generative image, music and the sound installation OrigiNation across four rooms. A headphone station guided visitors through them.
THE WORKS
InterSpace stood at the centre of the exhibition. Seen through a small peephole, the sculpture appears square. From another direction it appears as a round form, into which the black hole of the next room is also drawn. Walking around it broke both readings apart. For me it held the views of two artists in the same world: two opposing truths can coexist.
Nimitta, a generative image, moved inside a black hole, a form marking a singularity and its event horizon. A computer inside the form created a new image of chaos every minute. In the same room sounded music I composed with cellist Mika Seppänen during my earlier residency in Narva.
OrigiNation, a 20-channel sound installation, brought singers from Narva Music School and the Finnish Nomad Vocals choir into a new version of Mu Isamaa / Maamme laulu, a melody Estonia and Finland share. The improvisation of soprano Juulia Karppi carried into the neighbouring rooms, where it met the cello by chance.
Mika Vesalahti showed paintings from his series Tritonus (2024) and Machine of the Gods of Hell (2020), including a large work on the horizon after suffering.
FOUR ROOMS
The exhibition spread across two larger galleries and two smaller rooms. It did not ask visitors to choose a correct perspective. Its form made the act of changing position physical: each view was partial, and the movement between them belonged to the work.
DOCUMENTATION
CREDITS
Concept, sound, the sculpture InterSpace and the generative image Nimitta: Jaakko Autio
Paintings: Mika Vesalahti
Music: Jaakko Autio with cellist Mika Seppänen
OrigiNation: singers of Narva Music School and Nomad Vocals; improvisation Juulia Karppi, soprano
Headphone narration voice: Eduart Tee
Supported by Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike). Presented at Narva Art Residency, Estonia.
