Minna Suoniemi’s Practical Ecology (2017) is shortlisted for LOOP Discover Award 2018. The LOOP Discover Award has been created with the aim to support and recognize the recent production of videos and films by international artists through a free open call to the artistic community. This LOOP Barcelona initiative is supported by Estrella Damm, who sponsors this prize, in line with its longtime support to the cultural sector. The exhibition featuring the finalist projects, included in the program of LOOP Barcelona every year, will be shown at the former Estrella Damm beer factory (Antigua Fábrica Estrella Damm), giving the audience the opportunity to enjoy the works in an exhibition format. With the aim of fostering a space for the promotion of video art works, the LOOP Discover Award has also created an online video channel, in which selected works from the second stage of the competition will be available for viewing and voting. The most voted video will be part of the final exhibition along with the other 10 finalists, and included in other possible screenings.
Practical Ecology will also be screened at Nordisk Panorama. The film is included in the screening Nordic Lives at Röda Rummet, screened in the Malmö Stadsbibliotek on Saturday, September 22, at 11:00. The selection of short documentary films is also screened at Malmö Stadsbibliotek from September 15– 30 September and Oxie Bibliotek on September 19, 24 and 26.
Practical Ecology portrays a 74-year-old man, born during the World War II, demonstrating objects he’s invented. He has for example made a wooden cutting board out of an old leather sofa and skates out of old skis. All of the objects are made of found objects or waste which has no other use. The importance of the objects for him is in the invention, in completing the thinking process by using his skill of making something out of nothing, regardless of how useful the final object may turn out to be. The value of the object is defined by the invention and time spent to create it.
Minna Suoniemi (b. 1972) is a Helsinki-based artist working with moving image and video installation. She’s interested in how disruption and failure can make normative structures and models visible and has worked on loaded subjects such as gender roles, motherhood and power relations. She has exhibited internationally in Europe, United States, South America and Asia including Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in Helsinki, Preus Museum of Photography in Norway, 2nd International Festival for Photography and Video in Seoul and Moscow Biennial for young art, and her work is in Collections of major Finnish Art Museums. Suoniemi is a member of The Finnish State audiovisual Art Committee and works as a lecturer in Aalto University, Department of Art.
Nordisk Panorama, September 20–25 2018, Malmö, Sweden
LOOP Barcelona: Fair: November 20–22 2018; Festival: November 12–22 2018
More information:
AV-ARKKI HAS PROMOTED AND DISTRIBUTED FINNISH MEDIA ART SINCE 1989. AV-ARKKI’S PROMOTIONAL EFFORTS HAVE MADE THE ARTISTS’ PARTICIPATION IN THIS EVENT POSSIBLE.