Maija Blåfield / Brussels Pulp / Pierre Chancel / Klas Eriksson / Hanne Granberg/ Sabrina Guichard / Jane Hughes / Joonas Jokiranta / Saara-Maria Kariranta / Nuutti Koskinen / Pekka Niityvirta / Jyrki Riekki / Solidaarisuushillo / Elina Talvensaari / Trestalkes / Roi Vaara / Ilkka Vääti / Liisa Väätti
Financial Times
Mustarinda, Hyrynsalmi, Finland
12.06 – 11.08.201
[A] point may soon be reached, much sooner perhaps than we are all of us aware of, when [our absolute] needs are satisfied in the sense that we prefer to devote our further energies to non-economic purposes.
– John Maynard Keynes, 1930
The Mustarinda Association studies the urgencies of ecology and society through art and research. The international artist/researcher-in-residency program in the Mustarinda House provides a forum for new types of critical thinking. The Financial Times exhibition looks beyond the economic metaphysics that defines our time. There are, after all, other than economic forms of life still on Earth.
The artists and works have been selected through an open call and also invited by Mustarinda’s curatorial group. The works approach the exhibition themes through visual art, social studies, documentary film, urban exploration and crocheting. Altogether 17 artists, researchers and teams from Finland, Sweden, France and Ireland participate in the exhibition.
Many feel, at least unconsciously, that we cannot keep going on the way we are living now. The planet has its limits; the basis of our economy, cheap and easy oil, is depleting and the atmosphere has no room for more emissions. At the same time, key societal activities from health care to education and from science to the arts have been transferred to the sphere of efficiency and profit-making demands.
Somewhere in the horizon is another way of living but no one can yet specify what it could be. The ecological crisis and the related economic and energy crises raise many kinds of feelings in us as individuals and as communities: worry, sorrow, distress, denial, apocalyptic fantasies, melancholy. Financial Times exhibition deals with these feelings with support from the creative and psychic energy flowing through all human and living creatures.
Financial Times marks the end of the old world order but also a new beginning, a promise of a more enjoyable, meaningful and sustainable future.
The exhibition is curated by Paavo Järvensivu (D.Sc. (econ), researcher), Antti Majava (MFA, artist) and Nestori Syrjälä (MFA, artist) together with other members of the Mustarinda Association.
The Finnish Cultural Foundation granted the Mustarinda Association a three-year grant in 2012 for the Critical Art – In Critical Condition project, which aims to foster the status of critical art and critical thinking in Finland. The summer 2013 exhibition continues the series of exhibitions, seminars and events arranged within the project. This exhibition is also supported by the Kainuu Regional Fund.
Jane Hughes
Petrolchemical Bliss : 5 layers of decay
2013
Immersive multimedia installation
This installation was in a small wooden room in an old barn beside an old growth forest. The room was completely dark with a projection of a 3min video loop onto an assemblage of materials; plastic, glass, mirror, branches, bark, paper in large tank of water. Behind the water was a large charcoal drawing of a fallen decaying tree that slowly becomes visible as the eye adjusts to the darkness. The walls of the space were covered in a transparent plastic creating a plastic womb that encircled the viewer.
