Minna-Kaisa Kallinen
The Sea Inside the Earth
3.-27.4.2025
Video work 15 min 20 s
2025
The Sea Inside the Earth video work is a song about time, its layers and life beneath the surface. I got the idea for the work when I read that scientists had discovered an ocean hidden beneath the Earth’s surface. The massive crystallized water mass lies at a depth of about 600–700 kilometers. It contains three times more water than all the Earth’s surface oceans combined. The thought of a petrified sea in total darkness felt sad and somewhat ominous.
My work explores time and its various layers, childhood and its fleeting nature, tensions below the surface, and the consequences of our actions. It is intertwined with the essence of lichen and the imagination of a child, juxtaposes different living creatures with each other, and explores the relationships and emotions between various things.
The video features my child who shows dead bumblebees, branches and shells found in nature. The child imitates a lion and a bird, draws in the sand, and feels nature with their whole body. The work includes different narrators, and the text is mostly presented as a song. Sound designer Tuukka Haapakorpi tickles the sense of touch with creaks and rustles. In the visual world, realism mixes with overlapping images and a color scheme that deviates from reality. Together, the visual and audio elements create a new, imagined world.
Thank you
The work was realised with AVEK project grant and support from Arts Promotion Center Finland and Kone Foundation.
Minna-Kaisa Kallinen (b. 1984) is an artist and musician whose video and sound works have been exhibited at several solo and group exhibitions. At the moment, Kallinen’s art and music focus on the themes of growth, nature and parenthood and the connections between living and non-living organisms and things.
