Marja Viitahuhta
A Cohesive World
24.10. – 11.11.2012
Galleria Huuto Uudenmaankatu
A few years ago I bought a book called “Unser Österreich” from a flea market in Berlin. It was a German propaganda publication from 1938, a book that contained black and white pictures of a country that shortly thereafter became part of the Nazi empire.
I cut all the pictures out of the book and used a collage technique to turn them into a landscape. It was sort of an impossible puzzle to complete as the pieces didn’t match. It was a slow manual process to fit the pieces together. The result is a 10-meter long collage that is seemingly cohesive, yet at the same time the artificial nature of the landscape is so obvious. This creates the perception that the piece forms a cohesive picture one moment and a fragmented one the next. When looking at the work, you can notice your own desire to see something cohesive and on the other hand something imperfect.
A Cohesive World is an exhibition that consists of the previously mentioned piece and a few other works that have been created using collage techniques. The landscape postcards and travel pictures used to create the works were also found at flea markets and second-hand stores. The works create imaginary and artificial worlds that have a clear but twisted connection to our own real world.
Marja Viitahuhta (née Mikkonen, b. 1979) graduated with a degree in performing arts from the Turku Arts Academy in 2003 and from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 2007. A Cohesive World is her third solo exhibition. Viitahuhta is a versatile and interdisciplinary artist whose works include everything from short films and videos to performance art, photography and installations. Viitahuhta lives in Helsinki and is a mother of a little boy.
Thank you: Oskar Öflunds Stiftelse
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