Pinni47
The 1st demolition art house in Tampere brings completely new kind of art to the cultural summer of the city centre! The Demolition Art House Pinni47 is open from June 7 to July 30, 2023. The demolition house had 20 400 visitors during the summer!
Hosted in a space on the second floor, a series of group & solo exhibitions between 7.6 - 30.7 for Pinni47 created by five fine art '23 graduates from the TAMK Media & Arts Degree Program. The artists present works continuing their investigations found within their studies and thesis works; for example, the exploration of sustainable artistic practices and the use of recycled and homemade materials. The themes are also a result of a large amount of their studies being during the Covid-19 pandemic as well as starting new chapters in their lives after concluding their undergraduate studies.
Covid Time / 2023 / Wall-based Installation, mixed media / Gabriella Presnal
This installation I made site specific for Pinni47 at Purkutaidetalo in Tampere, Finland. I used COVID tests (all tested negative), chipped plates, toy animals, broken wires, dried paint, a graduation rose, and a broken computer, and then I included some small paintings. I was moving out of Tampere in late May and the festival started early June so I created this installation from materials I wasn’t sure I wanted to move and could throw away easily after this demolition project. The paintings are mixed media, one using COVID masks as a base, and others I used bio-inks like ash and orange for the base.
The work was inspired by the materials at hand, together they summarized many feelings of COVID lockdowns and having graduated (from high school degree) at the start of the pandemic, and then going through half of one’s undergraduate degree during the pandemic. It has feelings of lost moments, like lost graduation, and lost experiences of university via zoom, moments of taking care of family.
Between 21.6 - 2.7.23, Emily Laakso & Gabriella Presnal joined together for Midsummer to present the Sticky Fingers pop-up exhibition at Purkutaidetalo’s Pinni47! Sticky Fingers is an exhibition largely inspired by ecological processes and our relationships with them. The title imagines messy things; digging into the dirt with your bare hands, sticky jelly in between your fingers, and feeling just plain gross (can it also be nice to feel gross? What does it feel like to make oneself un-sticky?).
Laakso presents a collection of paintings and a cloth curtain using organic painting mediums and recycled materials; onions, chokeberry, cabbage, tea, and more. Her works are a continuation of her recent undergraduate thesis exploring sustainable painting methods as well as an exploration of the allegories between mental health and landscapes.
Presnal presents one painting and two moving image works. The videos build connections between queerness, nomadism, and ideas surrounding spatialities, such as utopias and holey spaces. Questioning; what can we learn of queerness and community from our ecosystems? What are the parallels between ecological biodiversity and queer liberation?
Queer Écosystème / 2023
14:16 / Single channel / Archival footage
The work uses archival footage displaying the life processes of bees as well as an aquarium. The sound for the work comprises various environments, atmospheres, and interviews conducted by Presnal. Presnal conducted 30 interviews, ranging from 20-80min of queer nomads from Southern Finland. This video work includes excerpts from 6 of the interviews and they come from Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Romania, Russia, Singapore, and Vietnam.
“Queer nomads" refers to queer individuals from mixed nationalities, having moved around within multiple countries, and overall international backgrounds. These interview excerpts describe some of the feelings within the queer community, such as stigma and pressure from both outside and inside the queer community, processes of self-discovery, memories, and more.
The use of archival footage related to animals and ecosystems is intended as analogies for how we perceive and build communities. For example, in aquariums, there can be an element of voyeurism when outsiders view queer communities. Even within queer communities, there can be voyeurism from white queers towards queer communities of color. Or the pressure of being perceived and stereotyped by both people within and outside of the community, for example, homophobia, judgment around labels, & sexist objectification.
At the same time, the sea and ocean are symbols of endless discovery, the unknown, freedom, and aquariums can also be forms of rescue; are these elements not also present in queer communities and spaces?
Recolonizing / 2023
Single channel work, 02:20, iPhone
Exhibited in:
2023. Sticky Fingers (Pinni47). Purkutaidetalo, Tampere Finland.
It was inspired by this list by Minna Salami titled 100 Things to recolonize, I was especially inspired by 13. Utopias and 100. Making a place for imagination. Recolonizing instead of decolonizing is making the point that one cannot reverse the effects of colonization, but rather, reclaim and translate. The text came from a task of writing down one's feelings and associations with this list within 5-10 minutes. For me, this resulted in something like a mindmap or bullet point list. I considered having a glossary, but I did not have a glossary when I wrote them down.
So I do not have a glossary in the video. Do I need to be understood and explain my thoughts clearly, or can this string of words explain themselves? There is also the question of does the words I use in this create borders by using specific language and terms - but it is also a question of who is this text and video for. Can it just be for me?
For me to understand and hold? A glossary - it is an explanation for you and also somewhat holds this academic or scientific frame. Does it need to be this way and use these conventions?