Intersection

I'm heading to Berlin this week, to take part in an exhibition called "Intersection" at the Freies Museum.
A while ago, the collaboration between Martin Bircher, Jonne Pitkänen and me gave birth to an interactive sound and video installation, "fogli di plastica a bolle d'aria".
First we had it here in Kouvola, in the Kouta Gallery at the Kouvola Art Museum, and now we are dragging it to Berlin. And I'm playing some noise/ambient music with Jonne at the opening of "Intersection".

Playing with the "fogli..."


I've been also drawing a lot, but finishing less. After the Berlin I'm going to isolate myself for a couple of months and finish every piece I've started to draw since the beginning of summer.

It will be here soon

"Autumn Spirit II"


- You see me... You see me, there's no point looking away.
- Yes, yes I see you. But you're not due yet. It's not autumn, not just yet. Have you looked at the trees, the leaves are still green.
- But still you see me, though it's not the time. Have you let go of my gifts already?
- Have I let go? I have nothing. Nothing for you to take. Unless you crave emptiness? Or the feeling of loneliness, the feeling of wanting to lay down, wanting to be forgotten. You want those? I am as you left me.
- No, it is not what I want
- Then what? Why have you come?
- I already said why I have come. And you're wrong. You are not empty. Far from it. You feel emptiness, but to be empty... no, you are not empty. The longing, the mourning, the pain inside you, they cannot empty you, they cannot drain the things that fill you. And you know that. You say you have nothing, yet you feel so much. That is not nothing.
- So... you're here to drain me then?
- No, why I'd do that? To take away the things that give you reason? The only things that makes sense, that makes you open your eyes in the morning. There wouldn't be anything left after that, nothing to feed upon, nothing to grow if I'd take away all those things. I would starve. And so would you. We'd both die. That is not my purpose, to end existence.
- Then what, you want my ability to feel? I already gave up that once, you're too late.
- Yes, that you did, but you got it back. You don't give up anything you don't want to give up. There's always the choice and the choice is always yours, never mine. I have never taken anything from you by force, I have never collected anything that didn't already have the stench of death in them. I'm the collector, I take only dead bodies, I'm not the one killing them. I'm not the one sitting amid them, trying to hold on to something rotten, that is already gone.
- Fuck you and fuck off, I'm tired of listening to you.
- Yes, I'll go, it was not my choosing to come here at this time in the first place. It was your growing need to dispose something, the craving to let go. You take your time and think what it is you need to let go this time. But now, right now it is not the right time. Not just yet...

In a dark place

Yesterday I had this dream that a good friend of mine was dead. I was sad and crying, not wanting to believe that she was really gone. But then I was talking with her parents, and they told me that although she was dead, somehow her spirit or ghost was still present, that you could feel her presence in this cave in a nearby forest. So I ran to look for the cave and found it in a grassy clearing. It was a cave in the ground, almost a straight hole down and I couldn't see the bottom, it was pitch-black. I started to climb down and immediately I could feel the presence of my friend, growing stronger the further I went down. But the cave was very dark, and there was water and I knew it was deep, bottomless. I also knew that she was down there, in the blackness, somewhere. I tried to move, to force myself to go down there but I couldn't. I was scared of the water, knowing I would drown if I went any further. So after awhile I climbed out of the cave, crying all the way up. And I hated myself for being too damn afraid to dive into the black water and find her.

So when I woke up, I started to draw this diver, someone braver than me, someone who can find her.

And I'm just wondering where you are when I can no longer keep everything hidden inside?

"These things can no longer remain hidden inside"


About spacesuits. The thing that intrigues me in them is that the suit protects you against a hostile environment, that will kill you if faced unprotected. Inside the suit, there's a small closed and sterile space, in which you can breath, where you are safe but also isolated from the outside world and moving is uncomfortable and limited. So there's many reasons why they sit well for my purposes.

I don't wanna explode in fear

Work in progress, a sketch of a new astronaut and some inks on a drawing I did earlier. There's something going on with these spacesuits/astronauts, more of them is lining up in my head...

Songs For The Living

A skeleton illustration for Songs For The Living, which is a community art project founded here in Kouvola, open for everyone to join. Check out what it's all about and participate with your song: www.songsfortheliving.com

Getting there, slowly but surely

Finally got the time to start inking this drawing I did sometime last autumn. It's not very unusual that some of the things I draw can end up waiting more than six months to be finished. Actually the best part is when going through my papers and sketches I find something that I already had forgot that I had done. It's kind of the same feeling you get when you find some cash from your pocket you don't remember putting there. It doesn't matter it's yours to begin with, finding something forgotten is like it was free or extra.