Sunday's Tale: a post from the past
Using hundreds of second-hand shirts Finnish environmental artist KaarinaKaiakkonen creates site-specific installations suspended above roadways or inside large warehouse spaces.
Using hundreds of second-hand shirts Finnish environmental artist KaarinaKaiakkonen creates site-specific installations suspended above roadways or inside large warehouse spaces.
Her
last work “Are We Still Going On?” was conceived in 2012 at
Collezione Maramotti, a private collection of contemporary art in
Reggio Emilia, central Italy. The large installation follows and
accompanies the compositional structure of the building, a former
clothing manufacturer Max Mara now the seat of the collection, an
interesting example of brutalist and organicist architecture from the
1950’s. The artwork involves hundreds of children’s shirts hung
in rows, it consists of two symmetrical structures that evoke the
skeleton of a large boat. For the selection of colors that define the
two complementary structures, the clothes suggest a symbolic dialogue
between the masculine and the feminine.
Kaarina
Kaiakkonen has always been sensitive to environmental issues, the
distinctive feature is the use of simple materials, such as molded
kraft paper, and second-hand clothing. She says: "Usually I use
even bad things that people throw away because no longer required.
This is important in my work, I do not want to use expensive
materials and precious because I think that anything of value. It is
a form of respect for life and especially the poor. I also believe
that not throw what belongs to us also means do not throw away their
roots. "
In
Kaikkonen’s works, objects become alive and speak to us of stories,
of people. They also – and specifically – talk of her. They evoke
frailness, but also hope and regeneration. They seem to evoke in
viewers an emotional, personal experience, and at the same time a
sort of mirroring, an identification in the community. The big
installations represent a community of passing-through voices, in a
dialogue with nature and social spaces, in their being the story of
each and every one; a story openly conveying a universal feeling each
of us may identify with, and draw what is perceived most intensively.
Alongside
the monumental features of her works – always strongly imbued with
the environmental and architectural elements surrounding them –
there is also a core linked to the impermanence and frailty of
materials somewhat pointing back to the frailty of human beings.
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