Out of Place – SALLA SALIN

Space sometimes seems more constrained, sometimes tamer than time: everywhere you see people wearing watches, but rarely anyone carrying a compass. Knowing the time is always important (and who can still determine it by the position of the sun?), but no one ever asks where they are. We believe we know: we are at home, at work, on the metro, on the street.

— Georges Perec, Species of Spaces

The works in this exhibition explore questions related to place and existence. They examine the role of human perception and awareness in understanding space, time, and place, reflecting on the spatiality of everyday life and our relationship with it.

We are so accustomed to our (everyday) environments that we no longer pay attention to the things we take for granted. Familiar objects, people, and spaces become fixed locations or parts of them in our minds—states of being whose existence we trust. But how do we actually perceive the world around us? How do we conceptualize our environment? How is a sense or memory of a place, of a person, formed? And what happens if what is familiar is suddenly “out of place”?

Salla Salin is a visual and performance artist/theater-maker based in Helsinki, working primarily with spatial art: site-specific and light-based works, installations, and performance spaces. Her visual artworks have been exhibited in both solo and group exhibitions in Finland, while her performances have been presented widely both nationally and internationally.

In her work, she explores the spatial and temporal dimensions of being and existence—how we exist in time, space, and place, how we perceive our surroundings, and how the spaces of reality are constructed.

Her recent works include the audiovisual video/spatial installation A Room with a View (Gallery Kandela, Helsinki, 2008), the live installation White Thread (part of the Performance Art Hall event, Kunsthalle Helsinki, 2008), and the solo exhibition Under an Impression, featuring three installations (Gallery Jangva, Helsinki, 2007).

This text was created with AI assistance