Floral Rivalry carries on Isola’s experience of nature as a ruler of all beings, even at a time when it has been cornered. I believe nature is reaching towards us, always finding a new way to flourish. Nature does not need us but we need nature.
Material for commission work for Marimekko is waste from construction site. Art piece was seen at Flagship-store of Marimekko in Esplanadi in 2021.
Special thanks to my assistant Elias Tuura.
Floor is Lava is a massive series of independent installations transforming both problematic trash into art and abstraction into understanding. Floor is Lava communicates climate change, mass extinction, and the burden of future uncertainty. It is the condensed form of all anxiety on the air. The work makes the abstract phenomenon visible, gives it a concrete form to stop at. Floor is Lava continues to grow as long as the destruction by humankind continues. The artwork is controversially sympathetic, weird, and beautiful. Like a creature from another world. In this case, the “other world” is our own, and the artwork forces us to witness its inevitable destruction or act on it.
Medium: Plastic waste from strawberry fields, thrash metal, and wood from wastelands.
Finnish Cultural Foundation has supported this series.
Floor is Lava won the Future Talent -prize in Vuoden Huiput Creative competition by Grafia in 2021.
2021 Mänttä Art Fair, invite exhibition “To Err is Human” curated by Anna Ruth, Finland
2021 Art video in collaboration with dancer Tiia Kasurinen and director Viivi Huuska. Still unpublished.
2021 Fotocentrum Raseborg, solo exhibition “Anthro-po-scene”, Finland
2019 In Situ Group exhibition, curated by Jukka Korkeila and Markus Karger, Germany
2018 Gallery Rankka, group exhibition “Pirstaloijat”, Helsinki
Anthro-po-cene explores the inner relationship of the artist with nature and the relationship of nature with her. Human is the most violent species on earth. The violence towards nature, other species, and its own members are constant and devastating. Mirroring one’s own actions, thoughts and privileges is painful and lonely work and it would be easier to look away. The hardest thing is to see and keep looking.
2021 Fotocentrum Raseborg, solo exhibition Anthro-po-cene
Artwork consists of video (4min) and growing series of photomanipulations.
Process has been supported by Taike.
Deep in the pacific ocean there is wandering the world´s most lonely whale. It has a name ’52’ because of the frequency of it´s sound. The other species can´t hear its´ endless singing which tone is at a different frequency than the other whales tones. No one is answering for it nor has ever seen it. Still, the whale exists because the researchers have heard it already in the mid 80’s. It was found when US Navy build a device to detect underwater listening devices and heard odd signals. Whale 52´s sound is calling at 52 Hz and it doesn’t fit to blue whale´s sound which is 10-39 Hz or fin whale´s tone 20 Hz. Researchers think that the whale is a mixture of more than one species and that makes it one of a kind.
The loneliness of a whale is comparable to people. One of our greatest fears as human beings are loneliness or never being heard by anyone. Like humans, whales are also social creatures. Like humans, whales can also biologically feel love and anger and are able to be part of a social community. Scientists are now trying to find Whale 52 – maybe in the near future it will become friends with people.
Whale 52 was seen at Provinssi 2018. Its´ material is fabric waste and fishing line. Size of the installation 8m x 6m x 4m
Special thanks: Sara Urbanski, Niina Autio, Marika Pekkala, Sampsa Räsänen, Nelli Nurmi and Ankkis Tapio
Beautiful Mess is a series of material experiences of trash. How can something so worthless and abandoned be so beautiful? How do the materials react when used after expiration date? Can industrial turn into organic? Series started at 2018 will be grown during times.
This elephant sculpture weighs as much as the yearly amount of garbage produced by two Finns (1000kg). Hopefully the elephant won’t weigh as much next year.
Norsu travelled through the city of Seinäjoki at the midnight sun.
Seinäjoki 2016-2019
Special thanks: Jani Korkiamäki, Jaakko Salomäki, Sini Savela, Jesse Jaksola, Annika Haavisto, Kalle Valtanen and Janne Hautamäki
Around 100 million tonnes of plastic is produced each year, of which about 10 million tonnes ends in the sea. Plastic doesn’t break down like natural materials – it doesn’t go away, it just goes from being a floating bottle to tiny plastic particles that are easily eaten by marine species or simply spread even further afield.
Soon our seas are just plastic. DO YOU DEAR TO DIVE?
2016
Seinäjoki
Plastic trash donated by Lakeuden Ympäristöhuolto.
GOO’s material is plastic packaging waste from the wood industry donated by Lassila & Tikanoja to me to give it a brand-new life as a piece of art. GOO is simultaneously an independent sculpture, a meeting place, and a utensil, that was first shown at Flow Festival Helsinki. GOO has also been seen at The Night of the Arts, Art Goes Kapakka at Teurastamo, and at Finlandia Trophy at Barona Arena. The large work of art consists of several pieces that can be detached and later used as chairs. All GOOs are for sale and part of the proceeds were donated to Jardín de la Niña María children’s home to Bogóta, Colombia. This is the city from which I was once adopted to Lappeenranta, Finland. During the process I had almost twenty friends (who are the best ones ever) helping me and enjoying warm summer with me and GOO.
2014
The facade of new Theatre Imatra is my second public art project. Three dimensional forms with graphic concrete have never been done before in this scale. The client wished that artwork would reflect theatre and city of Imatra. The consept of theatre contains hundreds of different parts such as actors, opera, music and even Chinese kabukitheatre and ballet. Theatre can not be included in one image. Imatra´s symbol is a large rapid. This piece combines these two, and when this artwork is being watched from distance it looks like a river, but when looked closer, all the little drops with images can be seen. All 150 drops have an image telling the story about theatre. Theatre will be finished in October 2016.
The purpose was to find the nature of dreams. The research and study of history of dreams, mythology, sleep studies and a trip to Turku to interview dream scientists Katja Valli and Nils Sandman were the basis for the process. I worked with electrical engineering students to bring the artwork to life. The plastic pillow has light and moving electrical parts inside. Artwork is in a dark room and electronic components go through a program. First the pillow looks warm, inviting and light breaths calmly. Then light shifts colder and electrical parts start to move like insects. Eventually everything stops and the viewer is left in darkness.
2014
