Saara Hacklin, PhD, Curator, Finnish National Gallery / Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma
This article was originally published online in Finnish only as ‘Ruumis, jälki, havainto’ in Martta Heikkilä and Annu Vertanen (eds.), Printed matters: merkitysten kerroksia. Helsinki: Academy of Fine Arts, The University of the Arts Helsinki, 2021[1]
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How does the artist’s body become a medium and a carrier? How does an author explore his or her relationship to the world by submitting to it? In this article, I examine the practice of five young printmakers: Roma Auskalnyte, Inka Bell, Inma Herrera, Emma Peura and Suvi Sysi. They were all born in the 1980s and 1990s and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki. The works they make take various forms: sculptural installations, performances, videos and reliefs. Yet all share a strong connection with the tradition of printmaking.
In this article I investigate the ways in which the relationship to the human body is reflected in their artworks. From this viewpoint I trace a relationship to the world, where the artist is exposed to different materialities and open to the surrounding world. The artworks discussed bring forth themes of perception, memories and different materialities, as well as questions of language and technology. What unites the artworks is their ability to reach towards the other, be it a matter of thinking in other ways, looking at history from another angle and thinking about our way of being in another way.
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[1] To access the book in Finnish, visit http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe202102053929.
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Featured image: Suvi Sysi, Caused Reflection, 2017, installation comprising surplus papers from the printing process, monotype; dimensions vary
Photo: Suvi Sysi
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