Featured image from: Jarkko Räsänen: Change (2022)

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animations

Nuutti Koskinen: Talk About Society (2019, 17:55)

Talk About Society is a video work combining video images and photography-based animation. The three acts of the work reflect upon the metaphors we use to discuss the society or the state. How can we avoid language and imagery that makes us hostages to the public imagination?

Jarkko Räsänen: Change (2022, 05:55)

Three artificial intelligences compete for the attention of the viewer.

Jarkko Räsänen: Supertelevision (2022, 02:51)

Supertelevision is an AI-animated dreamlike journey from the insides of a TV screen to the end credits.

Marja Viitahuhta: Mánnu (2022, 05:25)

In Mánnu, the yoik by sami musician Ánnámáret describes how the moon can take power over the viewer, putting him in danger and a state that cannot be escaped but must be confronted. On dark nights, one can imagine the Staalo, evil spirits in the indigenous sami mythology, walking in the northern forests – or wandering in the minds of people. The words in Ánnámáret’s yoik translate as: “Moon – I surrender”. The video travels in both the inner worlds as well as real Sámi landscapes, envisioned from both a human and a bird’s perspective. The work continues the long-standing collaboration between Viitahuhta and Ánnámáret and the series of video works created during that collaboration. Parts of the work are also used as part of Ánnámáret’s concert Nieguid duovdagat, in which Viitahuhta accompanies the music with her video works. The music also includes Ilkka Heinonen’s Jouhikko (finnish bowed lyre) and Turkka Inkilä’s electronic music.

documentary films and videos

Rosa Liksom: Marja from Carelia (2020, 66:49)

A documentary film tells the story of a gallerist Marjatta Nenander, born in the Finnish Carelia. After the outbreak of the Winter War, she had to flee first to Western Finland and then to Sweden, where she settled down after returning to Finland for some years. 

Mia Mäkelä: Into the Wild (2021, 09:49)

Into the Wild is a honeybee’s journey to the heart of the anthropocene. The video takes us back in time, to a remote village in Southern Lithuania. By documenting ancient beekeeping activities, Makela tracks down key moments in the relationship between two species, and how this affected the process of subjucating the honey bee into a condition of exploitable natural resource. The artist spent three years as a beekeeper, documenting her experiences. She researched the history of the European beekeeping and visited bee centers in Finland, Germany, Slovenia, Poland, and Lithuania. She also wrote a historical treatise on the importation of honey bee to Finland. Her theoretical framework is critical animal studies (CAS) and ecoethics.

Elina Saloranta: A Letter from Liisi (2021, 07:52)

The video is based on a letter from April 17, 1912. On that same day, there was a solar eclipse, which the letter writer is preparing to view through coloured glass. While waiting for the eclipse, she recalls her brother who has recently been “released from the world”. On the image track we see astronomical glass plates combined with intimate family photos.

Pinja Valja: To Make a Film Just to Meet Vera (2021, 16:16)

To Make a Film Just to Meet Vera is an experimental documentary about an encounter between two women, media artist Pinja Valja and model Vera Ruuska. As a child, Pinja dreamt of becoming a princess when she grows up. The main duty of the princess was to be beautiful, wear gorgeous clothes and be admired – just like a model. Pinja begins to make a documentary about Vera in order to explore her own childhood dream.

installations

Minna Långström: Photons of Mars (2019, 17:00)

Photons of Mars depicts facilities dedicated to interplanetary research, and the people working in these spaces; a Mars rover driver and a worker in the laboratory where the rover’s cameras are made. Filmed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the piece reflects on how such close connection to the Martian landscapes — over time — becomes more than the sum of data derived from photons hitting the robot’s camera sensors. The installation includes a model of the Martian rock, ”Jake Matijevic”, in a glass case. This rock was found on Mars in 2012, and is also featured in the video. One side of the rock was not photographed in detail, and these features are also rough in the model. 

Juhana Moisander: Deluge (2021, 08:20)

The leading elements in the landscape that opens up in Deluge are the sky, water, and a stone. From a far on the horizon, a swimming figure appears and proceeds purposefully towards the rock to find a moment of refuge. But the weight of the stone is not enough to support the man. He sinks with the stone and a moment later, the stone comes back to the surface without the man. We humans are bigger than our size and we pressure the environment and the creatures around us. The size and the shape of Deluge resemble an altarpiece installed on a five-meter high wall. The proportions become so large that they inundate the viewer. The visual starting points for Juhana Moisander’s work have been the 19th-century illustrations of the Bible by Gustave Doré and The Deluge, Michelangelo’s fresco in the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Leda Vaneva: Complementarity (2019, 09:40)

The principle of complementarity comes from quantum mechanics. The idea shows how physical reality is built of partly unpredictable elements, which cannot be known in their entirety. Complementarity embraces this uncertainty and celebrates the intrinsic duality of the world.

Denise Ziegler: Go Hard – Door Closes (2022, 05:12)

While following an endurance exercise in an almost empty ice hockey arena, the sound and movement of the rehearsal start to define the huge space. The massive wooden door of a cathedral closes slowly without sound. These vast spaces are animated by movement, sound and silence.

AV-arkki is a non-profit artists’ association. It was founded in 1989 and now has over 250 Finnish or Finland-based artists as its members. AV-arkki’s main purpose is to distribute Finnish media art to festivals, events, museums and galleries within Finland and internationally.