2015 NORTHERN ARTIST
Alma Heikkilä: cohesion, hydrocarbons, aspen, search engine, language and the others: Things that are massively distributed in time and space.
EMMA Espoo Museum of Modern Art. 14.10. – 05.12.2015.
New
generations will ask themselves what am I and what do I consist of? Thus is
also with art. Our main exhibition opening tonight - Passion According to
Carol Rama - is challenged by the exhibition of the young Alma Heikkilä. In
her time Rama mirrored humanity through a very personal experience. Heikkilä
does the same - but in an exactly opposite way. What is the universe and how
is it related to the questions of humanity? The perspective is not that of
an individual, or the artist herself, but rather a cosmic view directed
towards humanity. Huge bet, I would say. And brave in a very different way
from Rama.
Amazingly enough, in addition to courage, there are other
similarities: I cannot find any role models or parallels to these artists. I
see them both searching for the answer to the fundamental questions of life
through radically new and personal questions. To modern man universal
consciousness is very much a personal issue. We are frighteningly aware of
the threats to the world, which forces us to consider whether humanity is
after all only one stage in Earth's history? The question has to be asked,
because after the human demise, nature, laws of physics, the molecules and
the material objects - for example the sun - remain. Heikkilä’s universally
enigmatic works refer to elements of matter and the universe. They do not go
away, so could we also define ourselves today through these facts?
Today we
are celebrating a special and talented young artist Alma Heikkilä. At the
same time we conclude the series of three exhibitions in cooperation with
the Kari Huhtamo Art Foundation. During this period, we have seen new
initiatives not only from Heikkilä, but also from Jaakko Mattila and Mia
Hamari at EMMA’s experimental art space, Areena. I warmly thank Kari Huhtamo
Foundation and their secretary general and our partner Katariina Lipsanen. I
hope this fruitful cooperation that is now at the end, can also be a
beginning of a new cooperation.
Excerpt from the opening speech of
10.13.2015
Pilvi Kalhama
EMMA - Espoo Museum of Modern Art
translation: Katariina Lipsanen