Since 2013, I have been creating performance videos. The performance always involves painting, either as animation or otherwise as part of the video. Often, it also includes a song sung by me.
DURME / NUKU / SLEEP
Durme (Nuku, Sleep) tells a story of love and care in the midst of persecution. The timeline of the work spans from the Middle Ages to the present day. In the video, I sing a Ladino-language song in a cave shaped by the Ice Age, which has been a refuge for people for thousands of years. The performance also includes a painting that comes to life as an animation before the viewer’s eyes. In 1492, Spain expelled both Jews and Muslims as heretics. Jews who fled Spain have preserved medieval Spanish, Ladino, as a spoken language for over 500 years to this day.
EN MÅLARINNAS SJÄLPORTRÄTT / TAIDEMAALARIN OMAKUVA /
SELF-PORTRAIT OF A PAINTER
En målarinnas självporträtt, Taidemaalarin omakuva, Self-potrait of a painter in the video, the narrator is as if having a conversation with Helene Schjerfbeck. The narrative elements include drawing a shadow image referring to the myth of the birth of visual arts, the narrator’s own painting animation, painting over Schjerfbeck’s self-portrait, and a Meänkieli (Tornedalian Finnish) song called ”Kryyvimaa.” Meänkieli, based on Old Finnish, is a vanishing language in the Tornedalen region of Sweden, even though it has official minority language status.
Regarding Self-Portrait with Palette I seen in the video, Schjerfbeck has said that there is little red on the palette because there has been so little love in her life.
HIRVI / ELK
In the Hirvi (Elk) performance video, I clean an elk’s head that has been boiled in the forest and then take it to my studio as a model. I use the elk skull as a reference in a painting animation. In the performance, I establish a connection with the elk, which was a crucial subject in the rock paintings of the Stone Age throughout the Nordic regions.
SYDÄMENI LAULU / THE SONG OF MY HART
”Sydämeni laulu” (The Song of My Heart) deals with death and the perplexity of a person in the face of death. When confronted with death, a person enters a strange intermediate state where ordinary everyday life fades away, and shared experiences with the deceased fill the mind. I seek words and expression for this state. The inspiration for the work comes from the poem ”Sydämeni laulu” by Aleksis Kivi.
