WOW.14 / Ukraine
@ National University Kharkiv/Ukraine 10-12 April 2018
National House of Cinema/Say By Body Art Festival – Kiev/Ukraine 13-14 April 2018
Video Art Festival Turku (VAFT)
@ AND – Artists Network Database
http://and.nmartproject.net/?p=5031
Video Art Festival Turku (VAFT) is an annual video art festival taking place in Turku, Finland. The first two festivals were held in the old warehouses of the Old Great Square in May 2016 and
2017 and the VAFT 2018 will take place all over the city of Turku this May. The festival itself is curated by an artist juror, but team VAFT curates video art content to all kinds of events. One
of VAFT’s missions is to bring video art to new and unexpected places and contexts, outside of the white cubes of museums and galleries.
Curatorial statement
Afar alike
This combination of 3 videoworks brings us to questions of society, class, human emotions and everyday life. All the works are from Finland, but they reflect what is happening all around
Europe. There is a strong ethos of “winners versus losers” going on in the world today. These works can all be seen as comments to this discourse. A cleaner is seen as a loser in the eyes
of the upper class for not pursuing a “better” career, but choosing small salary and hard physical work instead. Someone whose home is messy, is seen and can also see themself as a
loser for not being in enough control of their life to keep the house tidy. Villages, emptied by mass migration to big cities, are seen as losers in a municipal level. All these experiences are
common to human life everywhere and “losing” is hardly a term we like to use of our own lives. Our physical and political geography might vary, but are our lives after all that different?
WOW Finland – Afar Alike
Curated by VAFT
1. Simo Saarikoski: Abandoned land, 2017, 12:15
2. Milja-Liina Moilanen: The Cleaner (Siivooja), 2017, 8:00
3. Heta Jäälinoja: Penelope, 2016, 4:08
.
Artists:
Simo Saarikoski
Simo Saarikoski (b.1980 in Finland) is multidisciplinary artist who works extensively in different fields of visual art. In his work he explores time and it’s phenomena, as well as human
impact on the environment and how to find mercy for yourself in the era of social media. Saarikoski uses video, sound and watercolor painting separately or in the form of installations.
He has performed with the group – Messianic Research Centre for Visual Ethics (MRCVE, funded in 2002) around Europe and US. The group’s modus operandi is to openly incorporate both scientific and artistic methods in its works. With the Finland’s state art price winner, art collective – T.E.H.D.A.S. he has realized several projects and exhibitions (e.g. “Live and Dead Art” in Pori Art Museum, 2014) and worked as a performance art event organizer and curator in Pori, Finland.
Title
Abandoned Land / 2017 / 12:15 min
Directed, Screenplay, Camera, Edit, Music, Sound Design: Simo Saarikoski / Subtitles: Lora Dimova
Abandoned Land is an experimental video that documents abandoned places, infrastructure and phenomenon in Finland. The video uses Finland as an allegory to approach recent changes of the European infrastructure and society with haunting images, prosaic narration and music. Before the depicted environment was abandoned it had grown to meet the demands of its society. Now useless, the video observes and documents the changes in our time from the reconstruction after world war II to present time. The material for the video was shot from 2015 until the late 2016.
Milja-Liina Moilanen
Milja-Liina Moilanen works with text, video and installations. She studies at the University of the Arts Helsinki’s Academy of Fine Arts. Current political topics, social phenomena and
everyday life fuel her work. Power relations are often displayed in her work through common situations and ordinary objects.
Title
Siivooja/ The Cleaner, 2017, 8 min
Director and producer: Milja-Liina Moilanen / Camera: Jirka Silander / The cleaner: Sinikka Moilanen / Editor: Eveliina Pasanen / – Sound design: Heikki Kareranta
The Cleaner is a series of artworks that is based on artists experiences as a cleaner. It concentrates in everyday life of a low-income worker in a form of autobiographical story.
Between years 2015-2017 Moilanen worked as a cleaner to help her poor financial situation as well as to collect material for Cleaner-series. She uses immersive working methods when she
writes fictive characters and situations. All the characters, situations, places and conflicts are based on a real life happenings.
Heta Jäälinoja
Heta Jäälinoja (b. 1989, Finland) studied animation in Turku Arts Academy and Estonian Academy of Arts. She has made animation for museums and theatre, and worked as animator in films. She likes drawings made by children, and dreams of having a dog and a piano.
Filmography: Penelope (2016), Love Hurts (2015), Omelette (2013), My Baby Don’t Love Me (2012), Title of work/year/duration/credits/short synopsis (max 300 words in English)
Title: Penelope, 2016, 4 min 8 sec
Credits: Director: Heta Jäälinoja / Screenplay: Heta Jäälinoja / Animation: Heta Jäälinoja / Editing: Heta Jäälinoja / Music: Jukka Herva / Piano: Kaspar Jancis / Voices of Toes: Karin Paumer, Vesse Veering / Sound: Horret Kuus / B6 Studios / Production: Estonian Academy Of Arts
Synopsis:
Doorbell rings. Someone is at the door. But everything’s a mess.
Awards: Grand Prix in National Competition, Tampere Film Festival 2017, Anca Student Award, Fest Anca 2017