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?


Exhibition mentioned in the Finnish media: Suomen Kuvalehti, Helsingin Sanomat

Oloseutu

2024–ongoing

ceramics, glass, sand, bronze, water, (chipboard)



photos by Tuure Leppänen, Veera Lakovaara / Oulu Art Museum, Meri Hallenberg 

I think of landscape as layers of states of being. As a fusion of regions. As a place where water circulates in my fjords, freezes and dries up. Where warm and cool streams meet. Purifying emotional residue and at the same time nourishing the new. A navel flower rising from the ground.

The installation Oloseutu is part of Liwata’s ongoing project, in which she explores how landscapes can express ideas about nationality. Throughout history, the landscape has been utilised in the construction of national identity, such as in 19th-century Finland which strove for independence. Could new landscapes reveal new ideas about what nationality could be?

A key aspect of the work is a sense of being in-between—a landscape that is not fixed, but constantly shifting and layered. Materials such as clay, sand, and glass highlight the cycle of life—how we return to the earth and become part of new landscapes. There are references to the Congo River and the fishing villages along it, stemming from family ties as well as frozen currents in the Finnish vicinity. Together, the body of work describes an emotional state dealing with the loss, where warm and cool streams flow from the body of the landscape.

The title Oloseutu  refers to philosopher Gloria Anzaldúa’s theory of the borderland (“olo” meaning “feeling” or “state of being” in Finnish). Anzaldúa describes a borderland as a third space that forms when cultures, worldviews, or identities meet. In the case of Oloseutu, a borderland can be thought of as a state of mind and a nation which is formed from feelings.

                                   

                                                                       “Oloseutu” exhibited at HAM gallery (2025)






                                                            “Oloseutu” exhibited at Oulu Art Museum (2024)

        



                                                    “Oloseutu” exhibited at the Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki (2024)

BFA

2022

ceramics, steel, sound





photos by Tuure Leppänen

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.

Maisemissa

2023

ceramics, steel





photos by Aukusti Heinonen

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.

“Maisemissa” works took part of Solar Noon group exhibition curated by Riikka Thitz. More information on the exhibition: www.idolci.space/solar-noon.