The third Art for Art’s Sake screening of the Spring season is titled Above & Under and invites the viewers to consider the human coexistence with other animals and living beings. The title echoes the age-old division between the earth and the heavens, but also evokes the hierarchies humans have established in nature. The works in the programme look at how different living beings collaborate, co-create and come to understandings, for example through the process of ecological filmmaking or cultural correspondence. The films also critically examine how humans have historically undervalued non-human intelligence, have aimed to pathologize and control human diversity, and interfered in the animal world by selective breeding of various species for aesthetic purposes.
Please find the full program with film descriptions and artist biographies below.
The duration of the screening is approximately 1h 20 min, and is followed by a Q&A with the artists Müge Yıldız, Leena Lehti, Marjo Levlin and Marloes van Son.
Art for Art’s Sake brings together artists’ moving image, media art and experimental film from Finland and around the world, novelties and classics. The series is a collaboration between AV-arkki and Cinema Orion and is curated by a working group consisting of Diego Ginartes, Sepideh Rahaa, Azar Saiyar and Avreno Heikka. The series has been supported by the Ministry of Education and Culture and the City of Helsinki, as well as previously by Kone Foundation.
ABOVE & UNDER
Date and time: Sunday, June 8th at 11:00 am
Place: Cinema Orion (Eerikinkatu 15, Helsinki)
Accessibility: Cinema Orion is not accessible, but there are two wheelchair seats situated at the balcony of the theater. Please find more detailed accessibility information on Cinema Orion’s website.
Tickets: Free of charge, book your ticket from Cinema Orion’s webstore.
PROGRAMME
Müge Yıldız: Non/Living (2024) | 10:36
Non/Living is an exploration that delves into the collaboration between living organisms; Saccharomyces cerevisiae (baker’s yeasts) and non-living; a ghost archaeologist. The film tries to find an approach between human and nonhuman beings while investigating ecological filmmaking and materialist films. The filmmaker held several experiments to find the best recipe to produce a movie with microorganisms, focusing on the intersection of art and science, including process-based experimentation and surface-based or cameraless filmmaking. During the screening, the silent film is open to human and nonhuman sound interventions.
Yıldız’s film will be accompanied by a sound performance by artist Marloes van Son.
Müge Yıldız is a Turkish artist-filmmaker and researcher based in Finland. Her artistic practice blends experimental filmmaking with hybrid techniques both analogue and digital and nonhuman partnership, pushing the boundaries of traditional filmmaking. She works largely with analogue films such as 8mm, super 8 and 35 mm, 16mm, archive sound and footage.
She participated in film festivals and exhibitions nationally and internationally such as 68th BFI London Film Festival, 36th Images Festival Toronto, Canada, Janela Internacional de Cinema do Recife, Brasil, and 24th Festival des Cinema Differents et Experimentaux de Paris, France. Her last multidisciplinary art project ‘Celluloid Film’ was featured at Future Materials Bank, which is part of Future Materials, an initiative of the Nature Research department at the Jan van Eyck Academie.
Marloes van Son builds instruments, installations and systems. The electromechanical objects that she develops explore natural phenomena and everyday appliances. By repurposing ordinary objects she aims to create unusual, yet familiar experiences.
Her recent work focuses on sound objects, instrument building, graphic scores and experimental compositions. During performances Marloes plays her self-built instruments combined with voice according to precomposed scores.
Originally from the Netherlands, she currently lives and works in Helsinki (FI). Recent events include: Solo-exhibitions at Galerie AMU (Prague, CZ) and the Tekniikan Museo (Helsinki, FI). Artist residencies at bb15 (Linz, AU), Titanik (Turku, FI) and DordtYart (Dordrecht, NL). Sound-performances at Art Fair Suomi (FI), Inversia Festival (RU), Lofoten Sound Art Symposium (NO), Noise oor festival (UK), STEIM (NL), SMC2017 conference (FI) and DASH festival (Helsinki, FI). She presented work at Supermarket art fair 2017 (Stockholm, SE), ITGWO festival (Vlieland, NL), and Shiny Toys festival (DE).
Inari Sandell: Butterfly Logic (2024) | 10:40
Butterfly Logic examines butterflies’ moving patterns, societal norms of neurotypicality, and psychiatric interventions and histories concerning autism. A butterfly’s flying pattern might not make sense to a human observer, but its’ “erratic” logic keeps the creature safe from predators. The work presents the butterfly as a symbol of resistance to normative cognitive and bodily standards, and suggests we look at diverging manners of movement and thinking as their own logical systems; worthy, queer, and intelligent.
Inari Sandell (b. Lahti, Finland, 1991) is a multidisciplinary visual artist based in Helsinki. Their lens-based and sculptural work often takes form as installations, combining photography and moving image with textile, metal and castings.
Sandell’s practice stems from acts of neuroqueering, and actively challenging and unlearning normative societal frameworks and expectations for bodily and cognitive abilities. Their recent work takes on histories of psychiatric disciplinary systems that have shaped common narratives related to neurodiversity.
Their work has been exhibited internationally in galleries, museums and festivals including UKS Oslo, Hafnarborg Centre of Culture and Fine Art, the FCINY, Titanik, SIC, Photographic Centre Peri, Exhibition Laboratory Helsinki and Athens Photo Festival. They graduated from the Time and Space Arts MFA programme at Uniarts Helsinki in 2023.
Miia Autio: Letter 1 / AIR (2024) | 15:30
The essayistic video piece introduces an ongoing four-part video series. The dialogue heard in the background of the video is based on a correspondence between the artist and a Beninese diviner Koffi Robert Djossou. Through this exchange, the artist seeks to explore a worldview unfamiliar to her – that of Vodun, the world’s largest nature-based religion. It is a dive into the invisible world of the Vodun and questions about the relationship between faith, images and reality. This pursuit of the invisible sparked a personal journey for the artist, during which various messages, dreams, and the whispers of the wind began to almost effortlessly propel the story forward.
The work highlights perspectives related to Vodun’s worldview through words and questions that arise from the meeting of two distinctly different interlocutors. While it is essential to recognise the differences in the backgrounds and positions of the participants, it is equally important to understand that this dialogue would not exist without them. The piece seeks to demonstrate that collaboration between representatives of different cultures can create new meanings when the interaction is open, respectful, and aimed at a shared goal. These meanings are illustrated through video images that, in the words of Koffi Robert Djossou, convey the artist’s experiences within the invisible world.
Miia Autio is a visual artist with a background in documentary photography. She uses photography, video, and text as her primary mediums. Autio’s practice is often grounded in visual anthropology and in her more recent works, she has personally taken on the role of interlocutor, seeking interaction around the themes of her artworks. Her works explore the boundary between the visible and the invisible, as well as the impact of images on the construction of different worldviews.
Leena Lehti: Existence (2023) | 04:08
Existence is an abstract and poetic film dedicated to pollinators. The film’s title refers to the alarming decline in insect populations. Existence is a camera-less and chemistry-free film that combines film with pollen, flowers and bee wings.
Leena Lehti is a media artist who lives and works in Tampere, Finland. In her works, she uses old handmade film techniques combined with digital video and photography. Lehti’s films have been shown in screenings, art exhibitions and film festivals in Finland and abroad.
Marjo Levlin: Underdog (2024) | 30:00
Underdog sniffs and explores the world of dogs and people. In the B&W experimental documentary, the filmmaker’s childhood experiences of clashes between two social classes and language groups, parents living in different countries, and living in a life of scarcity have inspired her to examine the lives of pedigree dogs.
Marjo Levlin is an visual artist living and working in Helsinki. In her works, she contemplates both personal and universal themes, combining history and current phenomena. Originally a painter, Levlin now works mainly in installations and short films and often uses found and collected objects as the base for her art. In her latest works, archives, science and history has played an increasingly significant role. Levlin’s works have been presented in solo and group exhibitions as well as festivals since the mid-1990s in Finland and abroad.
Salla Tykkä: Airs Above the Ground (2010) | 08:20
The Lipizzan horse is considered to be the oldest extant cultural breed in Europe. The breed dates back to the 16th century when it was created with the support of the Habsburg monarchy. Lipizzan horses were bred to perform the purest form of classical riding, the High School dressage. The finest representatives of Lipizzaner stallions begin training when they are four years old. The horses are born dark and gradually grow lighter until they are completely white. The raison d’être of the Lipizzan horse is to bring beauty to humans. We look at the movements of the animal and see a glimpse of our history, present, and future.
Salla Tykkä (b. 1973) works with film, video and photography. Her works often touch questions on socio-political issues of power, domination, and images. In his works there is always a strong indirect relationship with the personal. In her practice recurring themes include those of gaze, gender, memory. Tykkä graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in 2003 and participated in the Ventsian Biennale in 2001. She has held several solo exhibitions both in Finland and abroad: Wäinö Aaltonen Museum, Turku 2019; Ludwig Museum, Budapest, 2018, M – Museum, Leuven, 2016; Galerie Anhava, Helsinki, 2015; Turku Art Museum, Turku, 2015; BALTIC Center for Contemporary Art, Newcastle, 2013. He has participated in several group exhibitions including: Göteborgs Konsthall, Gothenburg 2015; MAXXI, Rome 2014; The Metropolitan Arts Center, Belfast 2013; Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, 2013; Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, Istanbul, 2012; Turner Contemporary, Margate, 2011; 17th Biennale of Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art, 2010; Momentum, Moss, 2010. Her films are widely screened in festivals.