Featured image: Paola Fernanda Guzmán Figueroa: Returning to the Island (2022)

Discover AV-arkki’s latest acquisitions for our online archive below. For professional preview, please register to see the full-length versions.

New performance based works

Annette Arlander: Dear Spruce 1–7 (2023, 02:16:04)

Seven letters are written in Finnish to the spruce on Harakka Island in various places near the tree during spring and summer 2020. The letters are read, recorded, and added to the soundtracks of the videos.

Annette Arlander: Tell it to the Pine 1-7 (2021, 01:14:15)

The artist sits on the bent trunk of a pine tree on the western shore of Örö Island and talks to or catches up with the tree in Swedish as a recorded performance all in all seven times during the year.

Annette Arlander: On the Edge I (2020, 09:27)

The artist poses with a pine tree that grows on the edge of a sandpit on Örö island 30.11.2020

Annette Arlander: On the Edge II–IV (2020, 07:24)

The artist poses with a pine tree that grows on the edge of a sandpit on Örö island 30.11.2020

Paola Fernanda Guzmán Figueroa: Returning to the Island (2022, 10:30)

Strolling in the streets of Helsinki together with a plastic bag full of water, Paola is trying to find something. She sees something between the water. Finally, she can see what she was looking for: her parents are swimming in the Atlantic Ocean. Through the work, Paola explores topics related to fluidity, migration, and family.

Lea Kantonen: Uhritanssi (1984, 12:57)

The video is a document of the first performative graduation project of the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts. The perfomance is an observation of the effect of movement on breathing and sound of a moving person. The movement continues until the speech is completely inhibited. The space of the performance is a painting installation consisting of an area demarcated with white cloths; a pink tempera painting depicting a human figure; and a bowl of red currants. The performer jumps, falls, and rolls in the space while intermittently and breathlessly uttering the words of Peter’s first epistle: “… and build yourself as a living sacrifice…” In the end, she crushes the currants with her hands, rubs them in her face and on the painting.

Lea Kantonen & Pekka Kantonen: I am a Spring, memories of two pregnancies and childbirth. (1991, 16:40)

The starting point of the video is Lea Kantonen’s participation in the God’s Eye performance of the Auki group. The internal dialogue was created on the basis of the Gestalt therapy dream work. It deals with the performer’s experience of childbirth. Personal experience expands from human nature to planet Earth nature and to carnivalesque Cha Cha Cha childbirth. The video culminates in the dance of three pregnant women in a weightless space accompanied by whale song.

Nina Lassila: Game Over (2023, 04:13)

In Game Over, a hunter encounters a deer and receives a message. It is a similar story to that of Hubert, who goes out hunting and encounters a deer with a lit-up cross over its horns. After his vision, Hubert gives up hunting and becomes a pious person. Later he would be canonised as Saint Hubert. Stories and legends about deer appear in almost all cultures. Often a deer is a messenger and in many stories appears as a female figure with one hoof. Deer can also function as a link between people and the underworld. The video is part of a series of works titled Game Over.

Sini Pelkki: Present (2024, 26:56)

A Composition of a human figure placed in a challenging position. The impossibility of the image is discharged into movement and sound, into a stream towards a free form: of the performer, camera and image. In the centre of the work is the movement between spaces, dialogue between control and reflex, improvised performance, improvisation as a form of knowledge, and poetic text in dialogue and interaction with a space of various reflective materials such as mirrors and stones.

New installations and VR works

Ilkka Pitkänen: Kaikki virtaa… (2023, 12:00)

A video triptych filmed on Örö Island. On the left, a view from a cliff towards the sea. In the middle, the same landscape filmed through the bore of a cannon. On the right, a video of the moving sea surface magnified 100 000 times. A distinctive landscape depiction and a study of perceiving colors.

Leda Vaneva: Contingent Space 1 (2023, 04:16)

Contingent Space is a series of virtual collages built up from physical parts. The viewer is guided to explore the environment through a specific route. Entering one of the spaces is similar to entering a dream. It is another layer of reality where the physical is transformed into intangible.

Timo Wright & Kohei Okada-Skogorev: Fukushima – The Home That Once Was (2023, 20:00)

Meet the former residents of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident’s Exclusion Zone, who share their experiences of the loss of home, importance of community, and the fragility of memories. Walk freely in the 3D-captures of former homes and gardens and create your own version of the film.

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. If you want to hear the latest news from our distribution, subscribe to our newsletter!