Eija Hirvonen
Bonfire – installation
Galleria Huuto Jätkä 2
3 – 18 January 2015
As part of the exhibition, on January 17th 2015 at 5 pm Eija Hirvonen, Tuomo Kangasmaa, Kari Yli-Annala will perform Lumikkiluonnos. This is an experimental performative event, taking it´s inspiration from a Swiss writer Robert Walser´s text based on the fairy-tale Snow White. Spoken part is in Finnish.
BONFIRE
The installation built in the gallery originated by a campfire in the rural German village of Wiepersdorf. I worked there as an artist in residence for four months during the autumn of 2014.
We got the firewood from the nearby forest and in my mind this activity became the touchstone of people working for the common good.
I wrote the following in my sketchpad: “Wir gingen mehrere male in den Wald um Holz für das Lagerfeuer zu sammeln” (“We often went to the forest to collect wood for the fire.”). We were born as a group that at least momentarily belonged together and shared things.
We argued about how big or small the fire should be. Some of us wanted to look at a slowly burning fire and chat while for others only big flames signified a mutual celebration. They wanted a bonfire, a proper fire.
I also read the philosophical journal Niin & Näin around the same time. The 2013 winter issue focused on sleep and fire. The journal had articles about Heraclitus, the ancient Greek philosopher, whose thoughts have survived in fragments to this day. One of the best-known is: “It is the thunderbolt that steers the course of all things”.
For Heraclitus, fire offered a way to analyze reality so that the same fire burns in the sun, fireplace and lightning and it is seen as some kind of eternal fuel included in the events of change, destruction and birth. Fire is fire when it constantly changes its shape while burning.
I am interested in thinking about the same and different, empty and full, fragility and permanence and thus in communication and the possibility of dialogue.
The Bonfire installation displayed at Galleria Huuto approaches the idea of fire and burning through personal notes of an encounter by a fire. On the other hand, it also observes the gallery space and the world from the perspective of change.
In one of his fragments, Heraclitus promises:
“Cold things become warm, and what is warm cools; what is wet dries, and the parched is moistened.”
Further information:
Eija Hirvonen:
050 5352720
eija.hirvonen(a)gmail.com
www.eijahirvonen.com
