Displacement

Displacement

Opening: Friday, March 13, 2014, 6 – 9 pm
Exhibition: March 14 - April 24, 2015
Participating artists: Kalle Kataila, Tanja Koljonen Jaana Maijala and Mikko Rikala.
Curated by Maya Byskov and Terhi Tuomi

Gallery Taik Persons is proud to present Displacement, the first in a series of curated group exhibitions showing new positions by young artists working with (and around) the medium of photography.

The title of the show refers to the distance that exists between experience and memory, and the translation of one into the other. The works in this exhibition encourage the viewer to think about their points of contact with memory and their emotional and aesthetic experiences. The show questions how these points of contact are preserved in our minds and asks the question: is it possible to exist in two places at the same time? Sensory and finite encounters are articulated through the use of the photographic process with space for materiality in the form of sculptures, collages and film.

The exhibition is centered around the works of four artists, who eachrn propose alternative configurations of spatio/temporal displacement. Allrn the artists in this show share an interest in conceptualizing rnlandscapes, while at the same time proposing associations between rnemotional and physical experiences within these landscapes, and thus rndisplacing these encounters, in time and place.

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Structures of disintegration and decay as indicators of the rninevitable, progressive passage of linear time define many of the works rnof Mikko Rikala. The themes of being drawn between rndiverging powers and elements, between the sea and the sky, matter and rnair, serve as a metaphor for the awareness of being part of a cosmic rnwhole. Drawing attention to the origins of objects, his photographs and rnsculptures bear the traces of their provenance while being inscribed by rnthe passage of time.

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The large scale abstract works of Jaana Maijala can rnbe read as a map. Not a representation of parts of the earth’s surface rnin a geographical sense, but as records of her immediate emotional rnimpressions of places. Her drawings seek to preserve situations through rnthe rhythm of the pencil, an unconscious catharsis, which is then sealedrn through the act of photographing. In the work White Nights (2010) the artist has in her own words created "an altarpiece to the Nordic summers”.

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With an interest in things as carriers of human traces, Tanja Koljonen continues to work with objets trouvés,rn such as books, photographs and fragments of written text, to explore rnthe delicate line that exists between instinct and reason. Koljonen’s rnplayful approach invites the viewer to interact and co-constitute the rnartworks, and thus displaces and affirms them as an open ended rnexperience.

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Kalle Kataila’s work takes its starting point in a rnlive webcam feed from a beach in Hawaii, which he is watching from his rnstudio in Helsinki. The most perceptive thinkers agree on a new rnparadigm- and a new presence- brought about with the advancements of rndigital technology, that enable us to "see” what is taking place all rnaround the world. However, this appealing idea and voyeuristic exercise,rn poses certain philosophical questions. For is reality apprehended rnthrough the consciousness of it, and does it exist regardless of our rnparticipation in it?

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-Maya Byskov