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Year: 2008

Maja Rohwetter, 16.8.-17.8.2008

In collaboration with the KulturÖsterbotten residency programme at Stundars, Platform arranged an artist talk/opening with Maja Rohwetter, an artist based in Berlin.

Starting from a suite of paintings referring to experiences made from computer games, such as immersion, discontinuity of space, rendering problems and transitions from 2D to 3D, Rohwetter created an interactive 3D model. The painting process was translated to spatial constellations, layers and bodies.

The show at Platform presented a video of a camera flight through this 3D environment, in addition to four paintings – based on screenshots of the model – that she realised during her stay at Stundars. In the video, the tracking shot forces the spectator into an often uncomfortable movement through space, permanently deconstructing the picture. The four paintings explore similar aspects, oscilliating between the recognizable and the unknown.

Maja Rohwetter

 

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Avaruuslakana 24.7-7.8.2008

Wolf von Kries

 

Berlin-based artist Wolf von Kries’ public installation and the accompanying exhibition at Platform are derived from his immediate surroundings in Vaasa, namely the old soap and candle factory and the nearby forests. Using the raw materials at hand, he formed sculptures that seem to resemble surreal landscape models or islands. Made of chemicals, wax and lichen they are all results of a research about defining or claiming territory: a floating island made of wax that defies all notions of location, crystal gardens growing in sodium silicate, a chemical which Goethe believed to be the missing link between matter and life, and finally lichen which was one of the first organisms to survive on land, growing on bare rocks. These different strategies of defining or claiming space all come together in the flag project, a public installation, in which von Kries converted a silver space emergency blanket into a flag, which is now flying from the 15-meter flag pole in front of the vast empty lot on Sepänkyläntie. The silver sheet containing no symbol or colour only reflects the sunlight and the playing of the wind, neutralizing all notions of identification and territorial claim inherent to conventional flags. This work is also mirrored in the exhibition space itself, where a similar flag, suspended from the ceiling, moves in the stream of air caused by the open doors of the space.

 

Wolf von Kries

 

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Platform Runners 14.6.2008

West coast race

Platform took part in the yearly West Coast Race in Ostrobothnia with a team of 13 artists, including the current artists in residence at Platform, Wolf von Kries (D), and Nika Oblak (SLO) in Nykarleby, and almost got a bronce medal in its class.

The other runners were Dragos Alexandrescu, Albert Braun, Ulrika Ferm, Ia Ekman, Hannah Kaihovirta-Rosvik, Eija Leinonen, Magnus Lindström, Maria Nordbäck, Patricia Rodas, Peter Rosvik and Tuomo Väänänen.

 

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Tree hugger 8.3.-23.3.2008

Barry Sykes | Artist in residence February – March 2008

 

Platform is pleased to announce the opening of an exhibition by the London-based artist Barry Sykes, our current artist in residence. All the works have been conceived and completed in the five weeks since Barry arrived. Barry works with a wide variety of methods; primarily sculpture and drawing but also singing, stealing, fitness, forgery and lies. Recent projects have led him to impersonate a part-time police officer, make a series of sculptures blindfolded and redesign British currency. His work asks questions about usefulness, experience and appropriate behaviour.

The title of the exhibition, Tree Hugger, is used deliberately out of context. Usually used as a derogatory term for ecologists and extreme nature lovers it is instead used to raise questions about the approach, intentions and possible benefits of the works. It also describes a desire to interact with your immediate surroundings and the absurdity of some of the activities this has involved.

For this exhibition Barry has devised a number of strategies to create new work in reaction to the expectations of a residency model. His only pre-planned tactic was to involve two collaborators working from London, each in very different ways. For the project ‘The Dad Directives’ Barry has sent his father – a keen amateur photographer – 6 short instructions every weekend to take one photograph and send it to him in Vaasa. These have included ‘Go out of the house after dark and photograph any house with a window that you can see someone through’ and ‘Take a photograph of a photograph you wish you had taken’.

For his research project with i-cabin gallery, Barry has undertaken a long email conversation about importance, usefulness and philanthropy. This epic text will be available to read in the gallery alongside a large hand-drawn map of Vaasa produced by i-cabin based on Barry’s description of the town and exactly €100 worth of adapted wooden handicrafts purchased from the Vaasa prison inmates shop. Other works in the show will include a blatant rip-off of another artist’s work, a design for a new font and a sculpture of two imaginary wall brackets.

Barry Sykes was born in Essex, England in 1976. He gained his Masters from Chelsea College of Art, London in 2000 and lives and works in South East London. His recent exhibitions include Evolution de l’Art, Bratislava (2007); Itchy Park 1,2,4 & 5, Limehouse Town Hall, London (2004-2008); Putting spark back into your relationships, Gallop design studio, London (2006); Romantic Detachment, PS1 New York and Chapter Arts Cardiff (2004), and Déjà Vu, ProArtibus, Ekenäs, Finland (2006). In 2006 he was nominated for the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Visual Arts for his collaborative work with the artist Sean Parfitt. Tree Hugger is his first solo show in Finland.

Barry Sykes
i-cabin

 

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Eine Kleine Disko 5, 15.2.2008

The fifth EKD took place at the old military barracks in Vaasa in collaboration with Joakim Hansson, Rasmus Hedlund, Peter Rosvik and Platform.

7.12.2006

EKD is a dynamic art project that welcomes performance, noise, video and intervention with related art forms to create flux in EKD context. The announcement “come together” is the setting that creates EKD’s coming-to-be.

EKD is a nomadic art project in the sense that it is not a permanent screening, disco or performance festival with pre-set programmes, but a kind of cultural jamming journey from which the participants never return to the starting point.

Instead of requesting people to seek for art as experiences, EKD brings experiences as art to the spectator and invites people to meet each other within the original idea of a “party”.

EKD is a non-profit project and exists on the premises that are offered for taking EKD events from one place to another.

 

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