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Elina Brotherus: Meaningless Work (2018, 25:17)
After Walter de Maria, Meaningless Work, March 1960: “(…) By meaningless work I mean work which does not make you money or accomplish a conventional purpose. (…) Caution should be taken that the work chosen should not be too pleasurable, lest pleasure becomes the purpose of the work. (…) Meaningless work should be done alone or else it becomes entertainment for others and the reaction or lack of reaction of the art lover to the meaningless work can not honestly be felt. Meaningless work can contain all of the best qualities of old art forms such as painting, writing etc. It can make you feel and think about yourself, the outside world, morality, reality, unconsciousness, nature, history, time, philosophy, nothing at all, politics, etc. without the limitations of the old art forms. Meaningless work is individual in nature and it can be done in any form and over any span of time – from one second up to the limits of exhaustion. It can be done fast or slow or both. Rhythmically or not. It can be done anywhere in any weather conditions. Clothing if any, is left to the individual. (…)”
Ewa Gorzna & Katarzyna Miron: From a Distance (2020, 14:10)
A short film exploring the ways in which wild animals and humans encounter and coexist in the same habitat. It is an immersive journey through the mysterious, intriguing wilderness and an artistic endeavor to balance the typically human oriented relationship between man and animals by emphasising animal presence and viewpoint.
Carolin Koss: The Obedient (2018, 13:13)
The Obedient lives in a post-apocalyptic world, where she is strangely steered by a green light and posessed with red berries, which seem to be out of reach for her. Lead by a black cat, she breaks out of her invisible chains and goes on a journey through dark places in hope to find light.
Marjo Levlin: The Shadow of a Magician (2010, 13:20)
The short film is a poetic documentary where a deceased magician, The White Sheikh Ben-Ali-Bey, is brought to life through objects found by chance amid junk, pigment and dust in an abandoned poorhouse in the Finnish countryside.
Minna Rainio & Mark Roberts: To Teach a Bird to Fly (2020, 24:20, in featured image)
A woman spends her youth raising the critically endangered Northern Bald Ibis – eventually flying with the birds on their migration journey across the alps. As her story unfolds, a parallel narrative connects her actions with the effects of the climate crisis, offering us a lifeline of hope for a very different future.
Kaisa Salmi: Pump Room (2019, 22:09)
Pump room tells a story of a water pump room in a 100-year-old mental hospital. The room was inhabited by the workers of the hospital. Five main characters recall their everyday life in this special place and community in the span of 86 years. The sixth main character spent time in the abandoned house with friends and covered the interiors with graffitis.
Kaisa Salmi: Field of Blood (2016, 07:28)
”Field of Blood” sheds light on the culture of silence in the spirit of reconciliation. The performance ”Field of Blood” was held in Kouvola, in the exact area where the famous Finnish Civil War massacres took place in the spring of 1918. First, the executioners were the socialist Red Guard, killing more than one hundred conservative ”whites” on the ”blood fields” of Kouvola. Next, dozens of Reds Guards were executed and put in the same graves. Kouvola is considered one the centres of the most severe Red terror during the Finnish Civil War. The performance ”Field of Blood” is based on the documentations of the historical events in Kouvola as well as on memories and folklore of the local people. The performance belongs to a larger continuum of Salmi’s art works on the Finnish Civil War and is based on her doctoral dissertation on artistic research (Fellman’s Field, 2013). It is also a story of the family of Kari Harju, one of the 300 participants of the performance. He wanted to dig a grave on the clay field to reconciliation the trauma in his family.
Elina Saloranta: A Letter from Elli (2019, 06:05)
The video is based on a letter written by the Finnish singer Elli Forssell-Rozentāle in August 1909. By its structure, the letter is an appeal for help, and since it begins with the words “Dear People”, it can be seen as being addressed to the whole of humanity. The aim is to get viewers to reply to Elli in their minds, to join her in seeking “some source of light”.
Maija Timonen: Correct Distance (2020, 39:47)
Correct Distance gets uncomfortably close to poor boundaries, ambiguous intimacies and intergenerational antagonism. Anxieties about ageing are pitted against unmet expectations in three intertwined settings. The protagonists reach darkly humorous insights as they try to assert their narratives.
Marja Viitahuhta: Women Are Fierce in Resistance (2020, 05:33)
A music video filmed in the refugee camp of Boujdour in Algeria and in the village of Tifariti in Western Sahara, in collaboration with saharawi refugees, who have been living in exile since 1975. The lyrics of the song, composed and sung by Hadijatu Larusi, speak of the importance of listening to women in the society. The dance of Tarba Baibu in the bottom of the dried-up river bed binds together the images of the everyday life of the sahrawi refugee camps.
Aino Unkila & Marko Alastalo: Eden (2015, 26:26)
Unkila and Alastalo are investigating an abandoned power plant through their bodies. The visual space is almost completely erased from the video. Bodily positions contribute to perceiving the space and creating momentary meanings.