Wasteland Stanzas
Wasteland Stanzas consists of humble objects, each and every one gently, painstakingly assembled, mostly from parts of plants, and some including artificial components.
The exhibition is a result of my long-lasting interest in the relations between pre-existing things and objects I’ve made myself, and also in the relations between ephemerality and permanence. I have always drawn parallels between them and the preconditions of our human life, our wishes and actions. That is why I collect materials, often plant parts, modifying them and sometimes combining them with components made by me. This method then serves as a platform for examining the human condition.
There is a tension in my works between fragility and durability: overblown coltsfoot and pearls, lichen and bronze, petals and stones, all these components have different life spans. Sometimes I use an element just once, others can, coupled with a new component, build up into a completely different work altogether.
I hope that the entities that are showcased here for calm perusal can contribute to a keener awareness of the seething content of our silent environment, create threads of association that stretch all over and link together different fragments, and in that extension tell us something about life itself.
MUU Gallery, Helsinki (2017)
