The Video Weeks is an exhibition collaboration between Sinne and AV-arkki, the Centre for Finnish Media Art. During summer 2024 it will be held for the third time.

The Video Weeks held 7.6.–25.8.2024 consist of a video installation in Sinne’s exhibition space that changes every two weeks. The works were selected through an open call to AV-arkki members, by Pro Artibus Foundation curator Markus Åström and director Mikaela Lostedt.

During the weeks we will screen works by the following artists:

7.6–26.6 David Muth & Antti Tolvi: Bliss
27.6–10.7 Institute of Coping with Destruction (Heini Aho, Leena Kela, Eero Yli-Vakkuri): Islet Borewell
11.7–24.7 Kristoffer Ala-Ketola: Expect Revenge
25.7–7.8 Aapo Huhta: In Limbo
8–25.8 Helka Heinonen: Heartbeats

7.6–26.6

David Muth & Antti Tolvi
Bliss
2024
05:00 min

In the collaboration between the artists David Muth and Antti Tolvi sound becomes visible and images become audible. Here, Muth continues to study the visual possibilities of self-generating code. His aim is to use simple mathematical formulas to produce random worlds from which causal chains of events emerge. The artwork originates from a more primitive version of the two-dimensional Conway’s Game of Life, and uses a one-dimensional cellular automaton in which the state of each pixel (black or white) in a row of pixels depends on the previous row, which determines whether the next pixel in the sequence is black or white. Meanwhile, Tolvi works with selected waveforms and analogue noises. His minimal sound world focuses on minor changes and is amplified in a mutually resonant interaction with the reductive moving image. From this an artwork emerges that plays with situations, circumstances, changes, and scales.

David Muth is an artist, musician and programmer. Having grown up in Salzburg, Austria, he relocated to the UK to study at Middlesex University, where he received an MA in Digital Arts. He currently lives and works in Turku and Vienna. His artistic practice combines conceptual and experimental approaches and is informed by his background in architecture. His projects range from installations and responsive environments, through video and experimental documentary, to composition and performance of music. Muth’s work has been shown on numerous occasions internationally, with venues and events including the Musée d’Art Contemporain in Montreal, the Kiasma Museum of Modern Art in Helsinki, Ars Electronica in Linz, ISEA2006 in San Jose, Le Cube in Paris, Montevideo in Amsterdam, Laboral in Gijón, SIGGRAPH2009 in New Orleans and the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid. He also teaches at Goldsmiths and the Royal College of Art.

Antti Tolvi (b. 1977 in Panelia) is a sound artist and performer living and working in Turku Finland. Antti has been one of the most important names in the field of experimental music scene in Finland since 2002. Told has released 14 solo records  Tolvi has held 22 solo exhibitions and participated in 22 group exhibitions. Freedom, peace, gratitude and minimalist aesthetics are often reflected in Anttis works which combines sound, light, wind, water, bodily sensations and living visual elements.  2023 Antti received The Regional art prize Varsinais-Suomi (Taike). Tolvis works have been exhibited e.g. Sibeliusmuseum, Turku (2023), Flow festival (2013, 2014, 2018, 2022), Rovaniemi Art Museum (2022), Helsingin Juhlaviikot (2021), Musica Nova festivals (2021), Huuto Galleria HKI (2021), Helsinki Biennale (Teemu Lehmusruusu working group 2021), Pori Art Museum (2020), Titanik Gallery Turku (2019) Antti Tolvi’s work Noise and form is part of the Wihuri Foundation’s collection. Antti Tolvi’s work Noise and form is part of the Wihuri Foundation’s collection. In 2017 Antti Tolvis solo show Metsän harmonia was exhibited at Sinne.

27.6–10.7

Institute of Coping with Destruction (Heini Aho, Leena Kela, Eero Yli-Vakkuri)
Islet Borewell
2023–24
09:05 min

The video follows a process of drilling a borewell on the Dansangrundet islet, which is located east of Örö island in the Baltic Sea. The borewell was drilled to the small bedrock island and produces drinkable water from the surrounding brackish seawater, which seeps into the borewell through microscopic cracks in the bedrock and between sedimentary layers. The barren islet acts as a filter, removing salt and organic matter from the sea.

Current land use and real estate laws outside of town plan areas in Finland conceive land ownership on the ground surface, on the horizontal plane. The laws do not determine ownership in the direction of height, for areas located above and below the ground. The use of land or airspace on a vertical level confronts questions regarding ownership on vertical planes, but also about how we perceive our responsibility in relation to the environment.

The quality of the borewell water has been assessed by the staff members of the Institute for Coping with Destruction on 25th May 2023. The assessment of the quality of the water was done by tasting. As part of the drilling process, stone dust was brought to the surface from deep in the bedrock, which the Institute collected as a material for pottery.

Dansangrundet coordinates: Lat: 59° 48′ 10,015″ Lon: 22° 22′ 55,968″

Video was shot and edited in cooperation with photographer Jussi Virkkumaa.

In 2020 artists Heini Aho, Leena Kela and Eero Yli-Vakkuri formed the Institute for Coping with Destruction, which operates at the Archipelago Sea near the island of Örö. The Institute for Coping with Destruction exists as a physical site called Tuhon tila (Area of Destruction), which consists of 42 hectares of land formed by almost 300 islands, islets and underwater rocks the institute co-owns with many others. Co-ownership gives them rights to camp, make fire and use the islets for making art, but not to insert any permanent buildings there. By physically working at the Area of Destruction they are devising methods for coping with the present environmental destruction of the Baltic Sea and beyond. Dansangrundet is one of islets, which the institute acquired in order to establish environmental degradation and destruction observation posts into the Baltic Sea.

The islet is part of an unorganized joined ownership estate. In the area, the artwork has stirred up debates on co-ownership, building permits, and the right to intervene with unbuilt sites. The video will also be presented at Öres summer group exhibition in Örö island, and the collective hopes that the video documentation can serve as a basis for a dialogue with the other co-owners and people who live in the area.

The artist collective’s comment about the work can be read in Finnish here.
Curator Markus Åström’s comment about the work can be read in Swedish here.

11.7–24.7

Kristoffer Ala-Ketola
Expect Revenge
2023
24:53 min

Expect Revenge consists of hundreds of scenes that together form an associative sequence, an absurd narrative, a visual poem, and a proposal for an edited history. The work borrows its style from the history of montage, music and collage video. In his work, Ala-Ketola combines scenes from his personal life with constructed images to depict a queer journey that merges the personal and shared, the symbolist and the documentary, the directed and intuitive, and the archived and the edited. Ala-Ketola reflects on his roles as director, editor, performer, viewer, subject and object. The work seeks its form at a constant rhythm that underscores the passage of time and changes the original contexts of the scenes.

In the video music by Niklas Hallman / LadyBug.

Kristoffer Ala-Ketola (b. 1991) lives and works in Helsinki. He graduated from Yale School of Art in 2019. He works with moving image, sculpture, painting, and installation. His works have been shown in Shin Gallery in New York, Kunsthalle Helsinki, and other exhibitions around Europe and the United States. His video works have been shown in Helsinki International Film Festival and Video Art Festival Turku, among others. Ala-Ketola’s practice communicates culturally shared affects and meditates on current politics, the psyche, behaviour, and the structures of culture.

25.7–7.8

Aapo Huhta
In Limbo
2023
08:40 min

The work depicts a human figure stuck in a vacuum-like space, attempting to rise but failing repeatedly. In Limbo is shot on black-and-white 16 mm film and developed using experimental darkroom techniques, which creates an illusion of a chemical storm surrounding this struggling human figure. In Limbo is included in the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation’s art collection.

The work was made in collaboration with butoh dancer Ken Maj.

Photographic artist Aapo Huhta (b. 1985) graduated with a Master of Arts degree from Aalto University in 2015. His work focuses on experimental documentarism and on the possibilities and impossibilities of the chemistry-based image. Huhta has published three photography books. In 2016, he was the first Finnish photographer to have a solo exhibition at Fotografiska Stockholm after receiving the museum’s Young Photographer of the Year 2015 Prize. He was named Young Artist of the Year 2020 in Finland. Besides his artistic work, he is a part-time teacher at the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, and Lahti Institute of Arts and Design.

8–25.8

Helka Heinonen
Heartbeats
2023
20:00 min

Heartbeats is a poem about heartbeats, blood, birds and whales. It is a fragmentary story of growth that weaves together experiences, moods and thoughts related to blood and other species at different age stages.

“While making the work, I have moved towards areas that feel embarrassing and awkward. I have researched both familiar and distant themes, which I have struck me, which I have stopped at, or which have seemed meaningful”, the artist explains.

The poetic work combines a staged moving image with stop motion animation. The animations consist of liquid surfaces moving over still images, color films, watercolor and lights. The work leaves space for the viewer to find the topics in the work that resonate with them.

Helka Heinonen (b. 1982) is a visual artist living and working in Helsinki and Kemiönsaari. Her works have previously been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Finland, as well as at film festivals in Finland and abroad. She is interested in themes related to narration, memory, relationships, identity, growth and relationship with nature. The works draw out recognizable moments and at the same time create their own distinctive world, where thought-provoking, dark-toned, pastel light and ambivalent elements meet.