The first Helsinki Biennale was overshadowed by the corona. Now the international visual arts event aims for 300,000 visitors. They are attracted by germs, spirits and hope. The ducklings come to Vallisaari for sale.
Artist Alma Heikkilä there is no bucket. You should test how the sculpture reacts to water and ink, but where do you test if it’s not raining.
Heikkilä has built coadapted with -to Vallisaarien. In its center is a plaster sculpture lowered into a pool filled with ink.
The sculpture is surrounded by fabric walls and a ceiling with an opening. Water should fall from the opening, which colors the sculpture and eventually makes it resemble rotten wood.
Heikkilä the work is included in the second Helsinki Biennale. The international visual art event, which opens on Sunday, is spread across Helsinki, but Heikkilä and his works are at the heart of the biennale in the heart of nature in Vallisaari.
“These walls are such a ghost of a museum. Things are happening here out of control, in a way that I can’t foresee. I don’t even know what the work will look like in autumn,” says Heikkilä.
Alma Heikkilä: coadapted with (2023).
The fabrics of Alma Heikkilä’s work have small sculptures made of silicone and resin, from which you can distinguish the small organisms of the forest ecosystem.
Heikkilä is interested in the diversity of life, the small organisms of forest ecosystems that cannot be seen with the naked eye. However, this is the first time he makes art directly in nature. According to him, it is “sickly difficult”.
“When everything is already here and this is such a wonderful place. I keep feeling that this [teos] it’s terrible when it just ruins this [paikan]. It is a contradiction that has not been resolved at any point”.
Heikkilä’s idea is to offer people a space where they can become sensitive to the island and everything that is there. Some of the organisms cannot be seen with the eyes. That’s why Heikkilä has raised the field of vision to insect, mushroom and bacteria sculptures made of silicone and resin.
It’s like a duckling rushes to the place on demand. It marches in a neat line past a bench with a half-eaten apple resting on it. A blackbird flies over. The paradise-like picture is completed by the soundscape of non-stop birdsong.
Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley’s figures are in three places along the Vallisaari route.
Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley: Thou Shall Not Assume (2023).
Nature there is no way to escape in Vallisaari, and there is no intention. Many works literally sink into the forest.
Director of the Helsinki Biennale and Helsinki Art Museum Ham Arja Miller says that one of the ideas of this biennale has been to draw people’s attention to small, imperceptible and seemingly insignificant things.
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In addition to Vallisaari, the works have been placed in various parts of Helsinki, including the Helsinki Art Museum in Hami.
“For example By Sasha Huber and Petri Saarikon the work is fog over Vallisaari pond. Whether you can detect fog depends on the weather conditions. It’s a small poetic gesture that sharpens our senses and makes us think about nature’s vulnerability,” Miller illustrates.
There are fewer physically large works on display than before. This is because the curator Joasia Krysa has, in Miller’s words, wanted to make people look at things more closely.
“When we learn to name a plant or, for example, a butterfly, and we say its name, it’s like a prayer,” says Lotta Petronella. He is finishing the hanging of his Materia Medica of Islands (2023) installation.
Lotta Petronella’s installation features, among other things, plants, herbs and berries collected from Ruissalo and Seili island.
Works in addition to Vallisaari, has been placed in various parts of Helsinki, including the Helsinki Art Museum in Hami. The biggest work of the event is on display there: the massive one that was included in the Venice Biennale Diana Policarpo multimedia installation Ciguatera (2022). The sculpture, which looks like a huge rock, has embedded videos of sea waves hitting the shore.
Many of the works have a digital dimension, artificial intelligence has been utilized, six works are online and two include augmented reality.
The topics are big. The works deal with, among other things, the destruction of nature and political clashes. Nevertheless, according to Miller, the worlds created by artists are not too pessimistic, but rather provide thoughts of comfort. The name of the Biennale also refers to this New directions can emerge.
First the biennale was organized during the corona pandemic in 2021. The event gathered 145,000 guests in Vallisaari. Now the goal is to get a total of 300,000 visitors to all the biennale’s destinations. Vallisaari’s own target share of this is 170,000. It is based on Metsähallitus’ assessment of the island’s carrying capacity.
“We are now expecting more foreign tourists. The international media has already shown interest in the biennale even before the opening,” says Miller.
Hana Omori and Tanya Cruz finish the figures that end up in the House of Spirits.
Ángel Yōkai Atā (2023) by the Keiken collective is a site-specific work that consists of three parts: a sound and architectural installation and an interactive mobile experience of the network.
Keiken’s Ángel Yōkai Atā was inspired by a Thai spirit house.
Artists or groups are participating in the event, about 30. Among them are Hana Omor and Tanya Cruz, who belong to the Keiken collective. They are finishing the house of the spirits. Ángel Yōkai Atā – is already standing on the isthmus between Vallisaari and Kuninkaansalmi.
The house is separated from the distance. The silver roof reflects the sunlight and invites you to come. There are benches all around, where you can watch the waves crash against the sea wall.
The objects inside the house are still missing, which Omor and Cruz are trying to glue to their platform. It’s not quite simple when the workspace is a tent blown by the wind.
“Hey, you see, it’s really twisted now,” Omor points to one of the fragile figures.
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Helsinki Biennale 11.6.–17.9.
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The exhibition locations of the international event are Vallisaari, the Ham Helsinki Art Museum and, among others, the central library Oodi.
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About 30 artists and groups are involved. Among them, among others, Adrian Villar Rojas, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Tuula Närhinen, Alma Heikkilä, Diana Policarpo and Dineo Seshee Bopape.
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The Ham Helsinki Art Museum is responsible for the production and Joasia Krysa is responsible for the curation.
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Organized every two years. The first event was in 2021, when there were 145,000 visitors. Now the goal is 300,000 spectators.
in London and previous projects by the Berlin-based Keiken collective have imagined what the world and our consciousness might be like in 500 or 1,000 years.
We are at the same point again. The complex being built in Vallisaari acts as a portal to an imaginary world of the future.
The piece was inspired by a house of spirits the group saw in Thailand. According to Omori, the experience was magical.
“In our Mexican and Japanese cultures, spirits and ancestors are celebrated. There is no place for something similar in the West. We decided to create a place for the invisible because we are interested in things we cannot see,” says Omor.
“Yeah, intangible,” Cruz says and continues.
“In Mexico, it is thought that offerings help the spirits to return and regain physical form. It’s about creating a connection between different worlds, between the future and the present, the living and the non-living.”
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“You have to get along with the forces of nature, you can’t fight them”
The group name Keiken is Japanese and means experience. The team members are working in the wild for the first time, and it’s been, well, an experience. The previous week there was nothing to do with the house because it stormed and rained too much.
“You have to live with the forces of nature, you can’t fight them,” says Cruz.
This was already noticed during the first biennial: Long hot season broke the technology and darkened some of the works.
Dineo Seshee Bopape’s work I re-member Mama (2023) is inspired by billboards.
Natural forces a South African artist has also been involved with Dineo Seshee Bopape. He is working on a sculpture on the edge of Kauppator, Lüypekinlaitur, which consists of packed soil.
I re-member Mama (2023) is inspired by billboards. At the time of the interview, it is still being finalized at Vihti. The work is related to remembering.
“I’ve always been interested in women who raise their voices and talk about trauma that has been kept quiet for a long time,” says Bopape.
Usually, when looking at outdoor advertisements, the ground is under the boards. Bopape’s work raises the earth and soil up, visible and in the center. Bopape would like his work to make people remember things they didn’t know they remembered.
“I hope that the work will create longing for the country. It reminds me of the deep connection that children have with the earth, when they play with it, get dirty with it, happily.”
Soil material is an important material for Bopape. It has a direct connection to the history of South Africa. Ownership of the land has been fought over, its resources, the food it produces have been disputed.
And of course it reminds me of Mother Earth.
Bopape thinks that the earth, stones and minerals carry with them memories of our ancestors’ time. Remembering is an important theme in Bopape’s art. So is forgetting.
Bopape visited Finland for the first time in February. Already at that time, he made observations about how, for example, the water and electricity crises manifest themselves in different ways in the southern and northern hemispheres, in different contexts in different parts of the world. In the winter, we also saved energy and the Finnish hotel’s saunas were warm for only two hours instead of the normal four hours.
The amount of light and ice also made an impression. And granite.
“You use a lot of stone. And granite! It’s everywhere. It’s amazing,” says Bopape.
Bopape’s work can also be seen in Finland in the fall, when his exhibition opens at Kiasma in October.
The Helsinki Biennale is open on September 17. until.
Read more: The Helsinki Biennale, which ended on Sunday, brought 145,000 visitors to Vallisaari – The outdoor exhibition also created funny situations, says the director
Read more: The Helsinki Biennale has the makings of a great international success, but success is also Vallisaari’s biggest threat
Read more: Up to 300,000 visitors are expected to the small island next to Suomenlinna in the summer – The Helsinki Biennale, opening on Saturday, combines art and nature
“The Biennale’s works have hope, new directions and blanks for alternatives,” says director Arja Miller from the Helsinki Biennale and the Ham Helsinki Art Museum. Behind her is Diana Policarpo’s multimedia installation Ciguatera (2022).
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