What Where When Who
We are three young visual artists from Tampere, Lahti, and Helsinki. Our primary mediums include drawing, photography, video, and installation art.
The shared theme of this exhibition has taken shape around a distanced experience of nature. Our approach is not one of direct observation or documentation but rather a perspective that is detached from nature, shaped by urban environments. The theme also indirectly touches on human nature and character.
Heini Matveinen
“Unfinished Work” is a series of seemingly light pencil drawings set in gardens and backyards. They depict airy close-ups of objects, situations, and unfinished tasks—chores abandoned or forgotten by those who once tended to them. Unfinished Work is both a reproach and a reconciliation. It serves as a reminder of idleness, procrastination, and inactivity, yet does not necessarily urge action. A more allegorical interpretation hints at transience and the fleeting nature of life. Many plant names in folk traditions have taken on ominous meanings, such as kotkansiipi (Matteuccia struthiopteris), known as the “clutch of death” or “deathbed,” and expressions where the word “die” is replaced, as in “begin to grow cow parsley” (Anthriscus sylvestris). In the end, are all efforts futile, as death inevitably claims us? (Lat. vanitas: vanity, emptiness, illusion, futility).
“Summer Job” is a spatial installation commenting on invisible labor. Many services rely on immense effort, which often goes unnoticed and unappreciated.
Heidi Saramäki
The photography series “Nature Images” captures man-made structures in natural settings. It includes abandoned, overgrown, reforested, and preserved locations. The focus is on the layers that build up in nature—humans shape the landscape, nature spreads over it, and then humans intervene once again. This cycle continues. At what stage of this process are we now? Which places are deemed worthy of preservation, and which are left to decay?
“Desert Rose” is a video projection illustrating how a seemingly lifeless, dry plant—typically seen tumbling across the desert in the wind—revives upon encountering water. The Desert Rose (Selaginella lepidophylla) is a rootless plant that survives in harsh conditions. Unlike most plants, its ability to move is essential for survival. It continuously searches for a suitable place, and once it finds a temporary pool of water, it settles, unfolds, reproduces, and then, when the water disappears, it curls up and moves on. I can take the plant out of a cardboard box, give it water, and witness this simulated natural phenomenon without ever leaving my home.
The installation “Can’t See the Forest for the Trees” is made up of small plastic airplanes. A forest built from plastic does not decompose, nor does it change form. Plastic accumulates in landscapes, slowly shaping into hills and ridges, mimicking natural formations.
Our perspective on things is often limited, whether in terms of time or distance. We examine details and define them without seeing the bigger picture. We make sweeping decisions that cause significant change. Sometimes we fail to see the forest for the trees—or vice versa.
Laura Uusitalo
For the photography series “Still Lifes,” I cut various images from postcards and arranged them into landscape compositions before photographing them. These works represent a cognitive state—places we have never visited but know to exist. Images and stories of unfamiliar cities and countries blend with memories of real places we have seen and experienced, forming mental images of different corners of the world, people, landscapes, and cultures.
The installation “Lawn” consists of about a thousand plastic water bottles, each containing planted grass seeds. The piece explores the mutual dependency between plants and humans, where both benefit but also suffer losses. Some plants receive endless care, while others are deemed useless and eradicated. Human cultivation allows plants to thrive in places they would never grow naturally. Fertilization and plant breeding—at its extreme, genetic modification—push plants to yield ever greater harvests, which seems to be humanity’s primary demand of them. However, no one truly knows where this will lead. The plant world is becoming homogenized, and genetically modified plants, once they spread beyond cultivated areas, may have unforeseen consequences.
The tiny natural elements in this piece are entirely controlled—I can move them, regulate their water and light intake as I please. Yet at the same time, the plastic bottle separates me from “nature” itself.
This text was created with AI assistance