Contemporary Art Archipelago 2011
Turku Archipelago, Finland
18 June–30 September 2011
www.contemporaryartarchipelago.fi
Turku 2011 – European Capital of Culture
If no place is an island any longer then what is an archipelago?
Not merely a constellation of islands, an archipelago encompasses also the ceaseless flows between them. The sea is its frontier, horizon, and medium. An archipelago does not follow the logic of detachment or enclosure, origins or roots, but ever present change—from geological formation to ecological disruption.
Contemporary Art Archipelago (CAA) sets out to explore this archipelago condition with a focus on the Turku Archipelago. Over twenty new art works by invited international and local artists reflect on the future of this area of more than twenty thousand islands reaching out from the south-western coast of Finland. What is specific to this site is approached in relation to elsewhere, while the insights into this complex and fragile ecology shed light on the urgencies way beyond its own shores. Embedded in the Baltic, known as the most polluted sea in the world, this region offers a case study that deeply resonates, in particular, with the necessity to find sustainable modes of coexistence. This requires reaching beyond the confines and comforts of individual islands, whether geopolitical locations or disciplinary fields of knowledge.
The exhibition forms its own archipelago across the islands during the summer 2011. The art works offer insights into the surrounding landscape informed by the journeys the artists have taken across the islands in dialogue with marine biologists and fishermen, landscape managers and cheese makers, farmers and pilots, activists and the military, and many others.
The works can now be encountered from cruise ships and small boats, along the roads, on tiny skerries and in the sea, in the harbours and on the ferries, on the radio waves, in a lighthouse, in the local restaurants and even underwater. They draw together, amongst others, global circulation of houseplants and urgencies of the marine ecosystem, sound archive of tales about the changing winds, an alternative mobile network, sheep that graze beyond the reach of all wireless connections, sci-fi visions of the islands in 2100, letters to a boy on his long school journey, a glass meadow, and a mirror of the sea’s thoughts.
Artists:
Alfredo Jaar, Elin Wikström, John Palmesino & Ann-Sofi Rönnskog / Territorial Agency, Minerva Cuevas, Nanna Debois Buhl, Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas, Palletti, Platforma 9.81, Raqs Media Collective, Renée Green, Tea Mäkipää, Tellervo Kalleinen & Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen & Henrik Andersson, Anna Nyreen, Antonia Ringbom, Arja Lehtimäki, Armi Nurminen, Janne Gröning, Kari Caven, Merja Isokoski & Hertta Kiiski & Tiina Palmu, Pia Rousku, Renja Leino, Sandra Nyberg, Sussi Henrikson
Curators:
Taru Elfving & Lotta Petronella