Romantic thought
2025
Helsinki Art Museum (HAM) gallery
photos by Tuure Leppänen
The being transitions from one state to another, gliding down the wall, back into the ground from which it was born. The being, now more of a region, spreads across the floor, growing itself several poles. They aid with navigation and serve as a reminder that regions, too, can be reborn. At the same time, at the back of the last room, romantic thoughts ring out about seeing oneself as a landscape.
The exhibition explores movements in which we become a landscape and movements in which we form ourselves from a landscape. Porous sandy areas, ceramic surfaces and multipolar bronze statues create the suggestion of a changing national landscape
National romanticism was a time when landscapes were used to find a shared national identity. Could new landscapes be used to shape new kinds of thoughts about what nationality might look like?
“As they turn into sand” (2025)
“Oloseutu” (2024–ongoing)
“Navel flowers rising from the region” (2025)
“Multipolar II” (2025) “Multipolar I” (2023)
Oloseutu
2024–ongoingceramics, glass, sand, bronze, water, (chipboard)
photos by Tuure Leppänen, Veera Lakovaara / Oulu Art Museum, Meri Hallenberg
“Oloseutu” reflects the relationship between national identity and landscape from my Finnish-Congolese background. Throughout history, the landscape has been utilized in the construction of national identity, such as in 19th century Finland that strived for independence. By using landscape as a tool to express emotions the work is formed from personal feelings that give shape to one’s own experience of nationality. There are references to the Congo River and the fishing villages along it, as well as to the frozen currents in the Finnish vicinity. Together the body of work describes an emotional state dealing with loss and the circulation of one’s being.
The title of the work refers to Gloria Anzaldúa's borderland theory (Rajaseutu), in which a borderland is described as a third country that has emerged from the clash of cultures between two countries. In the case of the work, a borderland can be thought of as a state (of mind and a nation) which is formed from feelings.
By following the changing nature of feelings, the work itself is also in the midst of constant change. As a counterbalance to the classically immortalized national landscape, the work changes its form at different times. At the same time, through temporality and process, it explores what it is like to create a work that isn’t locked into a final form but that lives and breathes aswell.
“Oloseutu” exhibited at HAM gallery (2025)
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“Oloseutu” exhibited at Oulu Art Museum (2024)
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“Oloseutu” exhibited at the Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki (2024)
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“Oloseutu” exhibited at Oulu Art Museum (2024)
“Oloseutu” exhibited at the Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki (2024)
Geographical poles are directly opposite to each other, and they can be used as guidance. A pole can also be understood as the central point of a clearly defined surface. A person’s pole, the navel, is a scar of the moment when they became one.
This body of work gently examines the relations between the body, country, and language from the perspective of the formation of one’s cultural identity. It is a spiritual exploration into oneself, one’s place in the world, and one’s navigation within the world. If I were to be divided into countries, how many countries could my body encompass, what would it feel like, and how would one move around in there?
In the ceramic pieces, the materiality of the soil appears on the surface of the clay, where images take form through the combination of different coloured clays. The layered rolling of the shapes to the clay slab combines techniques from printmaking and collage art.
This body of work gently examines the relations between the body, country, and language from the perspective of the formation of one’s cultural identity. It is a spiritual exploration into oneself, one’s place in the world, and one’s navigation within the world. If I were to be divided into countries, how many countries could my body encompass, what would it feel like, and how would one move around in there?
In the ceramic pieces, the materiality of the soil appears on the surface of the clay, where images take form through the combination of different coloured clays. The layered rolling of the shapes to the clay slab combines techniques from printmaking and collage art.
Overview of the three displayed works: Three-poled compass, Formation and audio essay Mapping (avoiding), mapping (collecting) / (fin.) Kartan (välttelen), kartoitan (kerään).
Three-poled compass, 2022, size 135 x 190cm
Formation, 2021-2022, 35 x 55cm
“Maisemissa” works took part of Solar Noon group exhibition curated by Riikka Thitz. More information of the exhibition can be found from www.idolci.space/solar-noon.
The works represent moments when a being transforms into something else. Moments when the next state of being can be found in the layered sediments. As a fossilised memory of the time when a person became one with the place.
In the works, I have thought about the intertwining of person and place through sliding figures and imprints of stone shapes in clay. The works are made by layering clays of different colours, reminiscent of the sedimentary layers. Through the interweaving of the forms of person and place, I have been thinking about the cycle of life and decay, where a person slowly merges into a part of the environment. At the end of this cycle, a person becomes small particles everywhere, forever participating in the birth of new life.
The works represent moments when a being transforms into something else. Moments when the next state of being can be found in the layered sediments. As a fossilised memory of the time when a person became one with the place.
In the works, I have thought about the intertwining of person and place through sliding figures and imprints of stone shapes in clay. The works are made by layering clays of different colours, reminiscent of the sedimentary layers. Through the interweaving of the forms of person and place, I have been thinking about the cycle of life and decay, where a person slowly merges into a part of the environment. At the end of this cycle, a person becomes small particles everywhere, forever participating in the birth of new life.
The zine Dictionary of alien nation plays with the concept of a dictionary that translates foreigner-centered Finnish words into English defined through poems. The piece discusses topics such as alienation and externality through observing the similarities that are linked with strangeness, foreigners and aliens. The photo collages present the human bodies which have turned into an undefinable alien form.
