14.12.2023
Kunsthalle Seinäjoki announces new exhibitions for 2024
Kunsthalle Seinäjoki announces new exhibitions for the year 2024. The Kunsthalle presents two solo exhibitions from Nordic artists: Imagine a Tree by Danish visual artist Jacob Juhl and The Horse, the Robot & the Immeasurable by Swedish sculptor Tove Kjellmark. Valoon kahlitut (Chained to Light) by the Finnish multidisciplinary working group will be opened at the end of the year. The exhibitions reflect the borders between natural and artificial and shed light on different power structures.
Those Who Kept the Light, the exhibition by Nastja Säde Rönkkö, and Laskoksia (Foldings), exhibition by Hannele Rantala and Kari Soinio, were announced earlier this year and will open at the end of January, 2024.
Hybrid forest to Vintti
The solo exhibition Imagine a Tree by Danish visual artist Jacob Juhl will open at Vintti in June. Imagine a Tree reflects on the borders between natural and artificial, our changing relationship with nature and our perception of the connections between the wild nature and envinronments cultivated and built by humans. In the artist’s vision climate change and loss of biodiversity will change the planet so much that future generations will no longer fully recognize the “ wild nature”. To illustrate this, Jacob Juhl will transform Vintti into an artificial forest made of broken planks, dead branches, fake roots, plastic leaves, hybrid creatures made of silicone, plastic, marble, sound, text and more. An essential element in the exhibition is the Vintti venue which, as a wood paneled space, carries strong references to forest, even though it’s a man-built venue.
Jacob Juhl is a visual artist and writer, working with photography, installation art and text. He is fueled by an endless fascination with humans as an odd threshold between nature and culture. Apart from exhibitions in his home country of Denmark, his works have been exhibited in Spain, Italy, the UK and Germany, among others. Imagine a Tree is his first exhibition in Finland. It will be exhibited at Vintti 14.6.-16.11.2024.
The encounter of horse and machine in Halli
The solo exhibition The Horse, the Robot & the Immeasurable by Swedish sculptor Tove Kjellmark will be presented in Halli in the upcoming fall. The exhibition has been presented in Färgfabriken in 2022. The exhibition presents sculpture, video and drawing. Kjellmark’s focus and ongoing study is the horse, a being with whom she has a deep emotional bond, as well as the self-constructed robots she works with. Horses and humans have a long shared history where the horse has assumed the role of a robot for human purposes, something that’s still relevant today when many horses must perform well to earn their right to exist.
Through various measurement techniques such as motion capture, 3D-scanning and thermal imaging, the artist has investigated subtle processes in different movement patterns in humans, animals, and robots in an attempt to approach the immeasurable. This is an artistic practice-based exploration of potential new values and sedimentary expressions, sprung from translations between materiality and immateriality through digital, analogue and performative techniques. The digital imprints from the encounter with the horse’s corporality have since been processed by both the artist and self-constructed robots into what has become a kind of hybrid sculpture where new digital technology and traditional materials such as bronze and marble merge.
Tove Kjellmark (b.1977) is based in Stockholm, Sweden. She is educated at École des beaux arts and The Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, where she received her M.F.A. 2009. Tove Kjellmark is recognized for creating spaces of critical reflection about techno-scientific acceleration, artworks that asks questions about the nature of human and nonhuman agency in a highly ‘indoctrinated’ post-human world. The Horse, The Robot & The Immeasureable will be her first exhibition in Finland. It will be shown in Halli 7.9.2024 – 4.1.2025.
Glimpse behind the häjy photograph
Valoon kahlitut (Chained to Light) is a multidisciplinary art exhibition by working group of Anne-Mari Ahonen, Heta Kaisto, Hanna Koikkalainen, Hanneriina Moisseinen and Anne Puumala. The exhibition has been inspired by the life and career of Julia Widgrén (1842 – 1917), Finnish pioneer in photography. Widgren, who began her career in the 1860s, was one of the most successful photographers in Finland. She lived an exceptionally independent life as a woman and entrepreneur in Vaasa. Her most well known photograph is the iconic photo of Antti Isotalo and Antti Rannanjärvi in shackles, taken in 1869. Isotalo and Rannanjärvi were famous knife-fighters and troublemakers of their time, known as puukkojunkkaris or häjys.
The working group examines the world views behind the photographs. The focus of the exhibition revolves around development of photography in Finland, womens’ active role in the early photography and the less studied photographs of power: photographs of prisoners, people of the countryside and women. The exhibition consists of archive photos, contemporary photography, object installations, textile works, drawings and videos. The exhibition has been supported by the Finnish Culture Foundation, Finnish Art Promotion Centre and Svenska Kulturfonden.
Stories and memories
Gathering themes for the upcoming exhibitions for the early 2024 are stories, myths and memories, longing and forgetting. The exhibitions handle the themes from very personal perspectives but also on a collective level. There will be two exhibitions from Finnish visual artists.
Those Who Kept the Light is a narrative exhibition by Nastja Säde Rönkkö. The exhibition consists of 10 cinematic video works and sculptures. It explores our dependent relationship with the sea, in a context of queer and feminist maritime narratives. The narratives are told through the context of human and other-than-human love-stories; the wind or the ocean are seen as entities with consciousness, emotion and a voice. Within the wider framework of climate emergency and the role of the fragile ecosystems of the ocean, the project explores the collective mindset of imagination and longing.
Laskoksia (Foldings) is a duo exhibition by Hannele Rantala and Kari Soinio, curated by Leena-Maija Rossi. The exhibition deals with explores themes of remembering and forgetting, change and loss, from personal perspective to a collective understanding. The photographs and moving images in the exhibition delve into timeless subjects such as loneliness, isolation, reminiscence, and trauma. The exhibition will be shown in Vintti 27.1. – 25.5.2024.
The opening event for Those Who Kept the Light and Laskoksia (Foldings) will be held on the Winter Day event at the Kalevan Navetta on Friday the 26th January at 5 – 7 pm. The Winter Day event is open for everyone and includes program for the whole family.
