15.6.2024 - 16.11.2024

Jacob Juhl: Imagine a Tree

Jacob Juhl (DK) has transformed the Vintti space into an artificial forest. In the artist’s imagination, habitat loss and climate change are altering our environment so much that future generations may not recognize what we mean by a natural forest. Reaching towards the high ceiling, the trees made of planks and their roots are overtaking the wooden floor and invite visitors to wander. Dry branches and plastic leaves of the trees point to a real forest. Hybrid creatures, inhabitants of the forest cast in plastic, silicone, plaster, and marble, resemble something familiar, yet strange. The birdsong created by an artificial intelligence could be real, but it isn’t. Likewise, the nonexistent rustle of wind through trees that don’t sway.

Imagine a Tree examines the definition of natural and artificial, and how our relationship with nature changes over time. What does “nature” mean? Is nature just a place where we can go for a walk and then go back home? Is nature a name for everything that is alive? What did nature mean 100 years ago? What will it mean in 100 years? How will human beings in the distant future remember this thing that we call “nature”?

The starting point for the exhibition was the Vintti exhibition space. Its high ceiling and wood paneling are in dialogue with the materials and subject matter of the artwork. Finland is, after all, the most forested country in Europe: forests cover more than 75% of its land area. Three quarters of Finland’s forests are owned by private individuals in southern and central Finland. The Finnish relationship with nature is much talked about and takes many forms. In studies, it is linked to concerns about the state of nature and the loss of biodiversity. It is also a globally topical issue.

Jacob Juhl is a visual artist and writer, working with photography, robots, installation art and text. He is fueled by an endless fascination with humans as an odd threshold between nature and culture. He investigates contemporary and historic meanings of concepts like “nature”, “life” and “human” and thereby also what we call “artificial“. Apart from exhibitions in his home country of Denmark, his works have been exhibited in Spain, Italy, UK and Germany, among others. Imagine a Tree is his first exhibition in Finland.

In the exhibition space there are ten different postcards with images made by an artificial intelligence. On the back of each card are some questions with different themes. You are free to let the questions guide your experience of the exhibition, and take some of the postcards home with you.

Please do not touch the objects in the exhibition space. There are some prototypes and experimental pieces next to the postcards that you are allowed to touch.

Imagine a Tree will be exhibited at the exhibition space Vintti 14.6.-16.11.2024.