Juha-Pekka Pohjalainen

The distant starting point for my installation is the vanitas theme found in art history, which I have sought to approach through symbolism that resonates with contemporary life. The awareness of life’s fleeting nature and its apparent futility is hardly unfamiliar in this millennium.

Human existence is bound to the external world—an interaction that defines the individual’s position within the whole. A defining characteristic of our time is the seemingly endless expansion of mechanisms for collecting, storing, and disseminating information. This growth shapes our era profoundly; even before birth, we are not beyond observation and influence.

Birth and death have become distant, institutionalized elements of our time—events that delineate the extremes of the human experience. Even the periods intertwined with them, such as childhood and old age, seem to be shrinking as the average lifespan increases. These transitions are pushed out of consciousness.

Time is about control, and utopia is about possession; competing for ownership creates the illusion of mastering time.

This text was created with AI assistance