Research Catalogue

A short essay on what is the role of art in society, what is the impact of art on society and what the terms avantgarde and critical art might mean today.

This exposition introduces an exploration of ceramic material from the perspective of an artist-researcher. The ceramic material is explored through aesthetics and making. In this exposition the material connection is understood as a broad term introducing the idea of different levels of involvement with the material. The material connections are reflected from two different perspectives, giving a more holistic idea of what influences the act of making and perception. In this exposition, I explore the material connections mainly from the subjective perspective of a ceramic practitioner and partly from the perspective of the viewers who have no prior experience of the processes of making. Together with the written content, I show different works e.g. videos and a sound file that reveal parts of the processes in ceramic practice. The video and sound works are discussed here as process aesthetics, exposing the experiences, that have aesthetic quality, in the context of making. Through these examples I discuss different levels of engagement with the material and its processes. The aim is to open the material connections in a different light describing the idea of diverse levels of engagement in the ceramic practice.

My video "Mitä ajattelu kutsuu?" exposed here, audiovisually mimics, translates, challenges and transposes Martin Heidegger's essay "Was heißt Denken?". A compilation of passages of Heidegger's essay, which I have translated into Finnish for this purpose, makes up the voice-over accompanying the images in the video. The exposition also includes these passages in Finnish and German writing. The visual language of the video, in turn, edges Heidegger's pondering out of its focus by turning itself towards a series of questions deriving from the margins and lacunae of the essay. In its own peculiar way, the video is a call for thinking. Further, a text, entitled "conversation" in the menu, addresses some aspects of Heidegger's essay as if seen through the video. The conversation revolves around the questions of language and translation. Its form reflects the density and multifaceted character of the audiovisual material. Finally, "epilogue" attempts at unfolding a question concerning "intelligent design" that arises from the material. Here, my main point of reference is Jean-Luc Nancy's notion of struction.

A short essay on what is the role of art in society, what is the impact of art on society and what the terms avantgarde and critical art might mean today.

Materiality concerns the relationship between humans and the physical world. This study explores the relationship between materiality and material-based art through an art project created together with nurses working in a ward for elderly patients in a mental health care facility. In this study, the material physicality activated the bodily senses and unlocked the memories of the participants. The materialization of the art objects was related to communication both in art-based research methods and in the hospital practice by contributing in a special way to the dialogue with sensory presence and tactile resonance.

This exposition consists of a 22-minute video piece, Aamu (Morning, 2013), and an essay titled "Videoteos laatukuvana" ("A videowork as a genre picture"). The video shows a family at breakfast. The essay views the piece as a contemporary genre picture — an interior painting depicting everyday life. The whole process reflects the many different ways in which art history can serve as material for contemporary art. In the text the words, too, take on a special, tangible, material form.