Land of Dusk – Nattens ekologi – Works from Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation Collection

The exhibition is curated by Rickard Borgström [FI] & Rebecca Chentinell [SE] / DACE – Dance Art Critical Ecology The exhibition Land of Dusk – Nattens ekologi is a dark tale about finitude as much as bewilderment over how inconceivably entangled life and the planet are. “At nightfall man vanishes – if they do not cease to exist, at least they dissolve, their contours become vague as the outer world starts to leak into them. In the night, their porous body intersects by invisible forces that crawl under the skin, collapsing their borders. In the darkness the individual figures are erased, as the personal life comes to an end and their body becomes an interface open for infinite currents of hardly noticeable shifts of thousands of strange bodies, merely sensed and not possible to distinguish. In the incomprehensible tremors of the loss of self, the horrifying vulnerability engulfs them as they no longer control themselves, all while they fail to separate their inner darkness from the darkness outside. Thus, the night becomes their awakening, not as a subject, but as an ecological organism, among organisms.” Land of Dusk is a narrative rather than a display. The exhibition halls are built in the spirit of the Renaissance with curiosity cabinets based on aspects of man's interconnectedness with and impact on earth.. In the black chamber, Juhana Moisander's video The First Brothers (2016), Pekka Jylhä's work My Candle Burned at Both Ends (1995–1996) and Jan Kenneth Weckman's drawing from the series The World, in Principle dominate the dark space and remind us of the fundamental essence of humanity, its both brutal and sacred nature. In the green chamber, the artworks flow, meander and live in a complex symbiosis. Creatures, guardians and shapeshifters of the night, amongst Jasmin Anoschkin's Hulahula PandaBunny (2017), Veikko Hirvimäki's Big Walk (2002), and Mia Hamari's Migrators (2017), awaken from the bowels of a mountain surrounded by polluted water. The sediments and atmosphere emerges from the fluctuating and hypnotic paintings of Arne Tor and Mari Rantanen – a mesmerizing world carefully watched over by Tiia Matikainen's Forest Guard (2019). Pekka Jylhä's Attack (1991), based on Eetu Isto's painting of the same name from 1899, is among the significant works of the red chamber. In the current world situation, a reference to Russia's two-headed eagle is shockingly timely. Dystopian futures and pasts of mankind fills the room, not least through Eemil Karila's painting All We Can Hope Is a Beautiful End (2016), Jari Silomäki's Room with a View (2010) and Markku Hakuri's Burnt Wood (2001). In another work of Jylhä, What’s Life Anyway? (1996–1997), a lonely pig looks at himself in a distorting mirror and ponders the conditions of existence next to Tapio Junno's Torture Machine (1973). In the other end of the room, red pigment from Marja Kanervo's work Oxide Red (2018), spreads on the floor like powdered blood. Natural science and ecological science fiction meet in the white chamber. Maija Albrecht's extremely detailed studies of birds and insects are placed next to the surrealist etchings of Simo Hannula, and alongside Kaija Kiuru's endangered orchids, which meet Noora Schroderus' plants made of human hair. In the back, a 3D animation by the artist duo nabbteeri shows a strange creature looking for its place in a human-centered world. The worldmaking practices and artworks at view blurs the boundaries between what we understand as acknowledged or questionable cosmologies, historical or extinct, present or future organisms, species and matter. Artists of the exhibition: Jesse Avdeikov, Maija Albrecht, Anne-Elina Alho, Ville Andersson, Jasmin Anoschkin, Tor Arne, Tuomo Blomqvist, Pirjetta Brander, Markku Hakuri, Paavo Halonen, Mia Hamari, Simo Hannula, Hannaleena Heiska, Veikko Hirvimäki, Tapio Junno, Pekka Jylhä, Aarne Jämsä, Marja Kanervo, Eemil Karila, Kaija Kiuru, Essi Korva, Marjo Lahtinen, Tuomas Laitinen, Tiia Matikainen, Elina Merenmies, Juhana Moisander, nabbteeri, Matti Nurminen, Mari Rantanen, Juri Saarikoski, Noora Schroderus, Jari Silomäki, Kim Simonsson, Tommi Toija, Paavo Tolonen, Jan Kenneth Weckman ja Seppo Öfverström.