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Between

Published 04/10/2002 by Platform

Miha Knific | 2.10–1.11.2002

 

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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Published 04/07/2002 by Platform

Peter Djelân | 5.7–28.7.2002

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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MOPE 02

Published 05/05/2002 by Platform

17.5–19.5.2002

International performance festival that took place in the City Art Hall of Vaasa.

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Father

Published 20/03/2002 by Platform

Per Hüttner | 27.3–28.4.2002

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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Nigerian Girls

Published 22/02/2002 by Platform

Josep Maria Martin | 23.2–22.3.2002

By Josep Maria Martin + Linnea Ekstrand, Lotta Eriksson, Eva Hertzberg, Marko Hynynen, Sanna Jokiaho, Timo Konttinen, Jessica Lindholm, Anna-Kaisa Lukka, Tiina Pitkäjärvi, Jimmy Pulli, Niina Rintala, Markku Ruotsalainen, Henna Sjöberg, Johanna Torkkola & Tuuli Tuikka

Platform was transformed to a livingroom – the wallpaper consisted of cartoons showing information for prostitutes how to avoid getting diseases. The opening was a roleplay, a prostitute form Nigeria is leaving, going back home, and a going away party was arranged for her. In the other room a video was shown of french students doing role plays of being prostitutes.

I´m from Nigeria.

I´m 20 years old. I´ve been a prostitute since I was 17. Many bad things have happened to me, but I´m still alive. I´m not stupid. I have dreams.

I believe in life, I think about the future and smile. Every day is a gift to me. I believe. Everything is going to be ok.

I´m a strong woman. Someday my dreams will come true.

 

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Nika Spalinger | 18.12.2001–3.2.2002

Published 15/12/2001 by Platform

For the duration of the exhibition a table top matching the gallery dimensions was installed into the gallery. Inset into this surface was a slotcar racetrack made by Tyco, a lap counter and two speed regulators for each racing car.

The Tyco track had been selected for its construction ratio of 1:87. Most other producers of racetracks favor a ratio of 1:32, resulting in larger cars that are easier for children to pick up and hold. These larger cars are also more durable – a feature that is important to the children who are the main consumers of these products.

Matchbox, the classic producer of model cars (and incidentally, along with Tyco, a subsidiary of Mattel) also produces a track with a 1:87 ratio. Such a ratio helps participants to identify with the drivers of the cars (who can also be controlled by the participants), and in this way to become more integrated into the race. The aim of the game contained within the sculpture is, more or less, to drive around in circles. The lap counter indicates how many laps have been completed and resets itself to zero after the completion of 50 laps. Although the general aim is to clock as many laps as possible as fast as possible, too much speed, particularly in corner situations, may result in the car spinning out as it loses contact with the racetrack.

 

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Sunrise 5 am

Published 15/10/2001 by Platform

Petra Lindholm | 20.10–11.11.2001

Petra Lindholm ‘s video is located in a flat. Nobody is at home. The images are still and harmonically composed, the foundation being in the study of light and colour usually connected with painting and photography. Petra Lindholm has also composed the soundtrack, which constructs various emotional layers together with the images. The video is accompanied by a series of photographs.

The sun is the great star. Nothing goes on. Days pass by. Someone is singing a song somewhere. One moment it is far in the background, another too close. The sky outside is never the same. The room yearns for sunlight. The pictures of the rooms were never shot. They are in the mind of someone. She thinks of these rooms while beeing away. She stays with that thought during the day. Considering her life and the plants by the window, how they will manage without water for so long. There is simultaneously striving and withdrawal in the image. The classical sign for uncertainty: two steps forward and one back. That is formed in the audiotrack, which knows no hurry, single sounds creep in to rest. The telephone rings. At the first signal it is afternoon, by the last the day has darkened: she has given up and left the day before, and missed the call she waited for.

 

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Tyco not Tyco

Published 15/09/2001 by Platform

Klaus Jörres | 20.9–14.10.2001

For the duration of the exhibition a table top matching the gallery dimensions was installed into the gallery. Inset into this surface was a slotcar racetrack made by Tyco, a lap counter and two speed regulators for each racing car.

The Tyco track had been selected for its construction ratio of 1:87. Most other producers of racetracks favor a ratio of 1:32, resulting in larger cars that are easier for children to pick up and hold. These larger cars are also more durable – a feature that is important to the children who are the main consumers of these products.

Matchbox, the classic producer of model cars (and incidentally, along with Tyco, a subsidiary of Mattel) also produces a track with a 1:87 ratio. Such a ratio helps participants to identify with the drivers of the cars (who can also be controlled by the participants), and in this way to become more integrated into the race. The aim of the game contained within the sculpture is, more or less, to drive around in circles. The lap counter indicates how many laps have been completed and resets itself to zero after the completion of 50 laps. Although the general aim is to clock as many laps as possible as fast as possible, too much speed, particularly in corner situations, may result in the car spinning out as it loses contact with the racetrack.

 

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Artists

Published 01/06/2001 by Platform

Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani | 1.6–22.6.2001

“Imagine this room is your studio. There is a mega exhibition coming up, and you are invited! The curator wants you to create a new work. Something great, extraordinary, extreme. There is a lot depending on this show and it’s not much time left. He’ll step by and you have to present your idea. Play/explain it in front of him, without giving him a paper, cause he doesn’t like that.
Today is the day: You meet your friends, you’ll find something.”

A casting for a feature-length film about young artists. A new generation. A small group of artists on their way to success. All about strategies, all about money, all about friends, lovers, partners. All about gallerists, curators. All about art-fairs and world-around-tickets. All about how to get a prepaid vacation and earning money by travelling. All about ideas, and where to get them. Where and how. All about luck, circumstances, context and environments.”

For their exhibition-project at Platform, Vaasa, Nina Fischer and Maroan el Sani were looking for the co-operation of some artists/art-students and actors /-students. They gathered a fictive, international artist-group and brought them together in a casting-like situation where the participants developed ideas for new artworks in couples or in small teams. The process was documented on video and shown at Platform.

 

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Meeting Point

Published 05/05/2001 by Platform

Finn Fem Fel | 4.5–27.5.2001

One of contemporary art’s most characteristic features has been the attempt to take art out of the art institutions and into life and society, so as to create points of contact and networks on a neutral plane, using unconventional forms. With our site-related project we have consciously tried to go in the opposite direction, to bring life/society into a new space for contemporary art in Vaasa.

The Meeting Point Project was divided into two parts. The first started with a series of concrete events, in which invited guests and visitors played an active roll. This part was concentrated and limited in time. The second part was the temporary exhibition in Platform’s gallery space. This was accessible whenever the gallery was open. The results of the work, which arose out of discussions, lectures, documentation, transformations and so on, became physical material in the project room. In the gallery the office landscape met neo-expressionism.

Meeting Point was intended to break the ordinary pattern of one-off visits to exhibitions, and instead to focus on conversation, lectures, actions and more. Here, FinnFemFel had the role of consultant rather than producer, thus acting as a kind of filter. The events organized were informal and simple, and were devoted to exchanges of ideas and to the possibility of producing new or unexpected connections. They took on their own visual shape, so that content and form complement each another. The boundaries between the different areas became fluid.

The character and aims of the events varied; they were about establishing contacts between people who live in the town and those who are visiting with the primary goal to bring together people from various areas of art, knowledge and society.

During the project, Meeting Point used various media – the daily press, radio/TV, the internet and so on – simultaneously, to reinforce the interaction, or to complete the circle between art and life. The movement described above, from outside into the gallery and from there out again, creates new identifications and interfaces for all those who were actively or passively involved in the project.

 

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