Artspace and residency
Platform made an exhibition at Verkligheten in Umeå. This was the second part of the joint exhibition by the members of Platform and the artist-run gallery Verkligheten (The Reality) in Umeå (S) on the theme Place and Identity.
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The screening contains works of 9 artists with different background and expression. The exhibition deals with different perceptions and possibilities of the contemporary moving picture as documentation and as work of art. The exhibition is put togheter of works sent in as a result of an open international invitation.
| 25.10 – 22.11.2003 PLATFORM presents an international videoscreening INT.VS.03The screening contains works of 9 artists with different background and expression. The exhibition deals with differet perceptions and possibilities of the contemporary moving picture as documentation and as work of art. The exhibition is put togheter of works sent in as a result of an open international invitation. |
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Place an identity was the frame we chose for making iD, an international exhibition in all mayor art venues in town and the theme was also the starting point for a number of projects before iD. The goal was to visualise the different ways a room or place emerges and how it is transformed, how the identity is created and named and above all how the place and the understanding of the self grows together.
It is a storytelling where we know the direction in general, but we never know what is going to happen along the way, in the next junction, which road or path we will choose. This means surprises and mysteries.
It is also an invitation – a hand reached out. A gesture that asks everyone that are present here, all willing to participate in a process where place, time, and identity is created in the city. This took take place in a town called Vaasa.
The aim of the iD-project was to present a multifaceted overview of contemporary art in an exhibition whose theme and content engage people and offer a visual experience. iD is directed at a local, regional, national and also an international audience, including both professionals and the general public.
The theme of the exhibition was locality, identity, and minority position in relation to the ever more globalised reality we live in. The objective is to use modern art as a means to interpret the pervasive changes that have taken place in the world. The starting point of the exhibition is: Is attachment to place and regional identity gaining in importance? In this context attachment to place is seen as something more than merely physical presence, i.e. living in a certain place. What we are looking for, more specifically, is a constructive critical point of view and a sense of presence within a tradition. On the one hand, this theme gives each spectator a frame of reference: Who am I, where am I and what is the relationship between these questions? On the other hand, there is also a basis for deeper reflection.
The fact that Vaasa is a city on the periphery from the viewpoint of contemporary art gives the theme a special significance and opens up interesting vistas.
The curators of the exhibition are Mika Hannula and Ulrika Ferm. They invited 18 Finnish and international artists. Most of the artists are active in the wide field of contemporary art and use the new means of expression available. In addition to traditional painting and graphic art, there was also videos, installations, photographies and different forms of social art in which the active participation of the audience is an essential feature of the art work.
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A joint exhibition by the members of Platform and the artist-run gallery Verkligheten (The Reality) in Umeå (S) on the theme Place and Identity.
The project was an initiative by the two artist-run galleries to create a collaboration were artists in the both regions express, widen, concentrate and deal with the concept of identity from a local and regional starting point. The main issue was to create a dialogue and relation between the artists across the sea of Kvarken, as well as bring to the fore the theme identity in a local perspective in time for the international contemporary exhibition ID that will take place in several institutions in Vasa during the summer of 2003.
During the exhibition there were also a number of discussions connected to the exhibition:
Grasspopper: Sven-Erik Klinkman (Vaasa) and Thomas May, (Germany) were invited to talk about ”locality-identity”.
VIB: Markko Hauttala, (Vaasa), Oda Projesi, (Istanbul) and Ulrika Ferm, (Berlin)
Markko Hauttala did a talk about his novel ”Kirottu maa”, Oda Projesi did an artist talk, as well as Ulrika Ferm.
The second part of the project will take place in Umeå, where the members of Platform will do an exhibition called Learning by doing in November.
The project was supported by the Kvarken Council, the regional council for Finland and Sweden in the area of the sea of Kvarken, to increase the exchange between the artists in the region.
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The exhibition of Ralf Wallis consisted of three images. The images had a monochrome character with a sense of shape. He combined wood-cut, painting together with the interactivity of the audience in the project space. In the darkened room the existence of both the abstract and the concrete light was reflected. During the opening Wallis did a performance; Black is black and the light we walk upon.
Wallis is dean for the cultural sector at the Swedish Polytechnic in Nykarleby (FIN).
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Inside–outside is about the interior and the exterior. About the visible and invisible. What’s left when we are stripped bare of exterior attributes. Its also about identity and uniqueness, and about adapting this to a new reality.
Read more (Only in finnish and swedish)
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The exhibition consisted of photographs showing everyday moments. Although they mostly look like usual family album photos, through their conceptual essence they stand for more than just a documentation or an aesthetic position.
The photographs made with a pocket camera talk just about what they record – life. They talk about cruel as well as joyful moments and show intimate well as public sphere.
The common thing of all his photographs is the perspective of the observer, he or she will feel their own presence in the image.
Miha Knific is based in Ljublana, Slovenia.
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An installation by Peter Djelân at Platform in collaboration with Peter Rosvik, Hannah Kaihovirta-Rosvik, Maria Nordbäck, Timo Saarelma and Fia Antus.
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International performance festival that took place in the City Art Hall of Vaasa.
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As a four year old Per Hüttner and his family had a car accident. His father was badly injured and died inhospital a few weeks later. Hüttner was brought up by his single
mother with his older sister.
During most of his grown-up life Hüttner has ignored the fact that this event and growing up without a father has affected him and his development as a person. Almost to the day 30 years after the fatal accident the artist produced a triptych video entitled ‘Who’s your Daddy? The video was the start for Hüttner’s artistic and emotional investigations into the effects of the tragic event and a life without a father. The current exhibition is clearly a product of these investigations.
In the centre of the space Hüttner has created an enormous clay phallus, which rises from floor to ceiling. For the opening it looked potent, shiny and impressive. As the exhibition progressed the clay dried, withered and eventually dropped off.
Hüttner also showed the above mentioned video triptych ‘Who’s your Daddy? In the first video a body-builder ‘substitutes’ the father figure repeatedly and in slow-motion lovingly tosses the smiling artist up in the air. In the second video Hüttner is held by one arm and one leg as the same man spins him around repeatedly. At the end of the short seque
nce the ‘father’ loses control, drops him and exits the image frame and Hüttner is abandoned, left alone on the ground.
In the last of the three videos we see the artist in a more embarrassing situation. We see him with his pants pulled down as he is receiving a spanking by the same muscular man as in the two other videos. The ambiguityof the videos raise issues about sexual identity, but also about punishment and how we are clearly coloured by the domestic situation that we are brought up in – and then particularly in our relationships to our parents.
Per Hüttner is a swedish artist based in Paris.
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