The Transformative Figure, Anna-Sofia Nylund’s three-channel video work premiering at Sinne, is a study of her own working methods and processes. She highlights her interest in observation, with the focus on the gaze. The film’s main character is an embodiment of the link between Nylund’s own observing gaze and reality.

The Transformative Figure is set in public space. Nylund likes to spend time in public settings, where she contemplates the space, the people and the objects. The events she observes become the basis for a thought game in which reality and fiction meet. Since the gaze has its own place and function in social power structures, here Nylund interrogates the visual language that we have learned, the way we read people’s behaviour, along with the meanings of objects and symbols. In The Transformative Figure, she occasionally switches off her own way of reading and understanding the surrounding roles, functions and narratives. Instead, she opens up her impressions by using a more concrete, and perhaps naïve, language. She breaks down the hierarchies between the different elements – it is as if she is doing a reboot and recoding reality. What happens when we set aside preconceptions and projections, and instead operate with another, more primitive way of cataloguing what we see?

The Transformative Figure takes its inspiration from the animism found in children’s play, where toys and objects come to life and have feelings. Nylund tries to give that idea itself a body and a soul. She has created a character that functions as a separate, intelligent being that exists outside of herself. The character does not communicate verbally, but collects and projects visual material for Nylund to observe and comment on. It becomes a fictive instrument that helps her process reality.  This type of communication inevitably acts as a link with the digital realm that is integral to our everyday lives, and with the way the wordless flow of images on screen sinks in and becomes a part of us, whether we like it or not. As our gaze and attention become fixed on the screen, the room that we are in simultaneously recedes and becomes a backdrop to a reality that is occurring elsewhere.

At the same time, the algorithms are responding to our behaviour. The “personalised” torrent of information presented to us involves an assumption about who we are, what we fantasize about, and where we want to go. That is why any artist’s gaze is so extremely important, because viewers of their art also see the world through that gaze. Herein lies the power of art: the gaze becomes an entry point into a wordless place where we can come together. This does not have to mean trying or wanting to understand what is happening on the surface, but, rather, that the gaze allows us to let go of ourselves for a brief moment, to feel a deeper connection with someone or something else, that in this intimate encounter we might perhaps dare to turn our gaze to things that are difficult and painful.

The Transformative Figure concludes Sinne’s exhibition year 2024. After the exhibition, we are going to upgrade our lighting technology and the gallery will be closed for the rest of the year. In January 2025 we open with the exhibition Everlasting Soup Salon. It is co-curated, co-hosted, and co-cooked by Farbod Fakrazadeh and Katie Lenanton, with several invited artist collaborators.

Markus Åström
Curator

Anna-Sofia Nylund

Anna-Sofia Nylund (b. 1985) lives and works in Helsinki. She gained a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Time and Space Department at the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, in 2023. She also holds a Higher Vocational Education Diploma in media and documentary film from Arcada from 2011. Nylund’s art is situated somewhere between documentary film, performance and experimental film. Her video works have been shown at international film festivals. In summer 2023, her performance The Garden was staged at the Hangö teaterträff festival. Her most recent solo exhibition was Craving Earth at Galleria Huuto, Helsinki, in 2022.

www.annasofianylund.com

Audience work during the exhibition

Art workshops give upper-secondary-school pupils a chance to join the artist to try out observation as a working method and to create a film without using a camera.

The exhibition has been supported by

The Finnish Heritage Agency

The work has received funding from

AVEK, Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike), Svenska Kulturfonden, Svenska Litteratursällskapet, Oskar Öflunds stiftelse, Sinne / Pro Artibus