- Rajamailla (Borderlands) and other works will be shown at a solo exhibition at Franklin Art Works, Minneapolis in 2010 (date to be confirmed)
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Eight Rooms received its premiere at Korjaamo in Helsinki on 5.11.2008. The new eight-screen video installation focuses on the international trafficking of women for prostitution.
The exhibition runs from 5.11 – 30.11.2008.
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If you could see me now is a trilogy of multi-screen DVD video installations by Minna Rainio and Mark Roberts.
The series is comprised of the works Rajamailla (Borderlands) (2004), Angles of Incidence (2006) and Eight Rooms (2008). THe three works explore how different groups of people experience their changing social positions and relations, and focus on people who exist at the margins of society – margins which might be either physical (geographical) or social. Each of the works also deals with the transformations experienced when passing from one place, time or set of circumstances to another. Continue Reading »
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Eight Rooms is an eight screen video installation that deals with the trafficking of women as part of international sex trade.
International human trafficking is a phenomenon that exists in the shadows of globalisation and in which Finland also participates. This trade in women – mostly from ex-Soviet nations but also further afield – is perpetuated by thousands of ordinary Finnish men, and yet it remains relatively hidden and unspoken in our society.
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The installation ‘Eight Rooms’ consists of eight synchronized DVD-video projections that have been filmed in hotel rooms. The screens create a circular space inside which the audience views the work. Each screen depicts a different hotel bedroom into which a cleaning lady enters to perform her work or tidying the beds and smoothing out the sheets. As the cleaning goes on, a narrator – a young Russian woman – describes the dramatised feelings and experiences of trafficked women. These brief, plain monologues, when juxtaposed with the ordinary and familiar hotel rooms, emphasise the everyday nature of this phenomenon. As the stories continue, the cleaner continues her own invisible work, cleaning the same rooms over and over again.
The installation uses images, sound and space to create a claustrophobic and sometimes uncomfortable environment that mirrors the experiences described in the narrative. The viewer becomes a physical participant in the installation, in much the same way that they are a part of a society in which trafficking takes place.
Eight Rooms is the third part of the Rainio & Roberts’s video If you could see me now. The first part of the trilogy – Borderlands (2004) – examined the Finnish-Russian border, while the second part – Angles of Incidence (2006) –dealt with the experiences of refugees in Finland.
Eight Rooms is a part of Rainio’s PhD research at the Elomedia Doctoral School for Audiovisual Media in the University of Art & Design in Helsinki and University of Lapland.
Script & Direction: Minna Rainio & Mark Roberts
Producer: Ville Hyvönen
Cinematography: Tuomas Järvelä
Original Soundtrack: Petri Kuljuntausta
Actress: Riitta Elstelä
Narrator: Nadja Leinonen
Co-produced by: Valotalo Productions / Virta Productions
The work is supported by:
The Promotion Centre for Audiovisual Culture AVEK
The Art’s Council of Finland
POEM, The northern film and media foundation
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Angles of Incidence is showing as part of the touring exhibition Borderlives
March 15 – June 1, 2008 Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany
June 14 – August 10, 2008, Stadtgalerie Kiel, Kiel, Germany
Veli Granö, Jaakko Heikkilä, Tea Mäkipää, Anu Pennanen, Minna Rainio & Mark Roberts, Vesa Ranta & others
Borderlives – Contemporary Art from Helsinki, St. Petersburg and Tallinn is an up-to-date inquiry into the artistic, social and mental situation of this northernmost region of art in Europe. It concentrates on artists, who independently and accurately reflect the epochal upheavals of recent years. At the center of this artistic discussion are physical and mental border experiences.
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Both Angles of Incidence and Rajamailla (Borderlands) will be shown at Rovaniemi Art Museum, Rovaniemi, Finland, from 23.1 – 9.3.2008.
A selection of individual (solo) works will also be exhibited.
Mark Roberts is showing two new video video works Foreign Apples and Terra Incognita from the series “Scenographs”. Each work in the series attempts to condense a theme or issue into a single scene. Foreign Apples looks at the presence of nationalism in the everyday, while Terra Incognita examines the difficulty of making life-changing decisions in a mundane world.
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Foreign Apples is the second work in the Scenograph series, and examines the way that nationalism secretes itself into the everyday.
Beside the video, the latest edition of Kotiruoka – a Finnish home-cookery book – is open to a recipe for apple pie, the first line of which instructs the cook to “Wash the apples and peel the foreign apples.”
The video consists of a scene in which a foreign man repeatedly washes and then peels foreign apples.
The work is presented as 7′30″ loop.
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Terra Incognita is the first in a series of single-screen video works grouped under the title of Scenographs.
The aim of the each work is to explore one issue in a single scene. As the title suggests, the intention is to combine the static elements of the photograph with the temporality of video and the idea of a scene as a container for actions or conflict.
In Terra Incognita a car negotiates a roundabout infinitely, unable to reach a conclusion about which direction to take. The work examines the difficulty of making life-changing decisions in a mundane world.
The video is accompanied by a map extract on which all identifying names have been removed.
The work was premiered in Rovaniemi Art Museum in 2008, and an edition was subsequently purchased by the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation.
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Angles of Incidence will receive its premiere and be exhibited as part of the fifth Finnish Photography Triennale at Salo Art Museum, 3.11.2006 – 7.1.2007.
The fifth Finnish Photography Triennial is organized in co-operation by the Union of Artist Photographers together with the Salo Art Museum and will be open from November 3rd 2006 to January 7th 2007 at Salo Art Museum. The show is curated by Raakel Kuukka, photographic artist, who has selected 17 artists to show at the triennial.
The main themes of The fifth Finnish Photography Triennial are the human being and the community. The title of the exhibition, Talvimaa – Winterland, is a geographically undefined area in the Northern hemisphere, but it is also a state of mind that can be interpreted and that in turn affects our interpretations. Semantically speaking, the title embraces at the same time borders and the lack of them, while looking also at the notions of local and global. The artists participating in the show reform, expand and question the associations triggered by the title.
The exhibition is a proof of the diversity of the working methods of contemporary photographers. The works reflect the broad range of stylistic choices of the photographers, from realism to surrealism, giving fresh life to the stereotypes of landscape and portrait photography. The variety of media employed by the photographic artists today, made it natural to include also video works in the show.
The artists included in the triennial are: Pasi Autio, Ilkka Halso, Martti Jämsä, Janne Lehtinen, Jouko Lehtola, Susanna Majuri, Aada Niilola, Hannu Pakarinen, Marja Pirilä & Petri Nuutinen, Minna Rainio & Mark Roberts, Catarina Ryöppy, Sanna Sarva, Marjukka Vainio, Hanna Weselius and Maria Ylikoski.
A catalogue of the show, both in Finnish and English, will be published in co-operation with publishing house Musta Taide. The catalogue, with its artist presentations, and articles by the photographer Hanna Weselius, museum director Laura Luostarinen and curator Raakel Kuukka, will be an up-to-date overview of Finnish contemporary photography at its best. Graphic desingner Anne-Mari Ahonen is responsible for the layout of the catalogue and other printed materials.
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INFORMATION Curator Raakel Kuukka, Union of Artist Photographers, Kalevankatu 18 B FI-00100 Helsinki, e-mail: photo@artists.fi
INFORMATION Museum director Laura Luostarinen, Salo Art Museum Veturitalli, Mariankatu 14, FI-24240 Salo, Opening hours: Tue-Fri 10-18, Sat 11-17, Sun 11-18. Admission 3 e, pensioners 2 e, students 1 e, children under 18 free. www.salontaidemuseo.fi.
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