Paula Lehtonen’s Morrison & Friends (2022, in featured image) and Jenni Toikka’s Prelude Op. 28 No. 2 (2022) were screened at WNDX Festival of Moving Image, held from October 5–9 2022 in Winnipeg, Canada. Both films were screened on Thursday, October 20 2022.
Documentary videoart piece Morrison & Friends depicts interspecies communications between humans and an alpaca. Morrison alpaca works with animal-assisted activities and alpaca therapy, visiting nursing homes with his trainer Tarja Jokinen. As a therapy animal, Morrison is used to interacting with people and he is not intimidated by people working behind cameras. This made it possible to create an environment in the studio where the participants seemingly simply needed to be present. Having all these beings spending time together was the basis for Morrison & Friends.
Paula Lehtonen is a media artist working with spatial video. Her work explores the process of digitalisation while expressing a primal yearning for a return to nature. Lehtonen was awarded a Master’s degree by the Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture (Media Lab) in 2013.
In Prelude Op. 28 No. 2, during a single long shot, we see two people taking turns playing the piano and listening alternately. The piece is the same on both times – Preludi Op. 28 No. 2 by Chopin – but when the performer changes, the interpretation of the song changes along with the perspective from which the song and its performance are viewed. The uninterrupted playing and single shot capture the event in one temporal moment, but as the camera moves and two people change places, time is equally layered. The performer becomes the listener and the listener becomes the performer. In one of the key scenes of Ingmar Bergman’s Autumn Sonata (1978), the mother and daughter take turns playing the very same Chopin’s Prelude. It is a piece that both are familiar with, so they are able to settle into the position of the other as they listen and watch the other play. A situation like this raises questions about the sense of reciprocity, simultaneity and synaesthesia. Could the roles become mixed from viewer and listener to the object of the gaze and listening? When watching the other playing, can you feel your own hands and fingers on the keys?
Jenni Toikka (b. 1983) is a Helsinki-based visual artist working predominantly with moving images. Toikka graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki in 2012. She has had several solo exhibitions in Helsinki including at Sinne, Forum Box and Kluuvi Gallery. In autumn 2019, her work was shown in the solo exhibition Reel at HAM – Helsinki Art Museum. Jenni Toikka’s video pieces have been seen internationally in group exhibitions and at festivals. Her work is represented in the collections of the Saastamoinen Foundation, Espoo Modern Art museum EMMA and the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma.
WNDX Festival of Moving Image, October 5–9 2022, Winnipeg, Canada
More information: WNDX
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.