TACICH3 – Joa Heikkinen
Opening: 16.2.2024 18:00-20:00. Welcome!
TACICH3 (The Abstract Course in Contemporary Harmony III) showcases perceptions of absurd experiences and the tragicomedies of life. The exhibition’s analog photo collages, installations and video are symbolically loaded examples of knowledge engraved on surfaces.
Forgotten and abandoned objects appear to be stagnant for constantly moving eyes. The materials of the pieces live in a different time, but go through the same stages as human lives. They have their own histories and memories that resonate in the space, subdued like esoteric ghosts. Could we relate to rusty metal or snags?
Masked protagonists repeat the lonely perimeters of their defence mechanisms on the screen of analog television. The video, digitally filmed through a viewfinder of medium format camera, interprets psychic imbalances and transfers the encounters with reality via slapstick inspired performances.
The stories and decay chains of worn and cracked beauty are set alongside. All of the forms contain something that has always been and will always repeat. The mechanisms of all matter tick in their orbits and their sole sounds combine into a fugue of infinite clashes. While waiting for the all-encompassing moment of harmony, one can only try their best to just be and laugh.
The entity is a final part of the series The Abstract Course in Contemporary Harmony. The project began from Heikkinen’s attempt to rearrange an unstable past by cutting up their old photographs and assembling those into collages. The compulsive collection of abandoned objects, found from industrial wastelands, warehouses and nature became an essential part of the series. The video work “In a lonely place” is an exhibition edit of a short film that is to be published later in the year.
Joa Heikkinen is Turku based artist, who expresses their surrealist and symbolist perspective through photography, installation and sound. Heikkinen processes externality, empathy and trauma by using volatile methods and materials. Heikkinen has a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from Turku University of Applied Sciences.