Photographic Gallery Hippolyte
1.11 – 24.11.2019
Meanwhile On The Other Side (Spyholes), 2019
© Heli Kaskinen 2019
Heli Kaskinen’s exhibition Meanwhile, On The Other Side is a humorous attempt of photographs and art-objects to make a claim and to give a peek into the other side of walls, borders and presumably neglected surfaces. The exhibition offers alternative perspectives and new interpretations of the ideas and events behind the photograph.
The works displayed at Photographic Gallery Hippolyte focus on themes of viewing, perception, and interpretation through various fades, turns, and transitions. On the other side of the surface, phenomena and human emotions appear in the works as a grave and yet playful combinations of images and words. The idea of turning is what guides Kaskinen’s work. In the Finnish language, you can turn a jacket, a pocket, a back or a side, but also an eye, or a mind. At the same time, to turn is also to translate words into Finnish—kääntää—you turn a language by turning it into another. Hreinn Fridfinnsson, an Icelandic conceptual artist, turned the inside of an entire house outward in his House Project (1974), while similarly, Kaskinen lays bare the plexus of everyday life with the use of reclaimed vintage frames and photography found across Europe.
The stories in Kaskinen’s works are reinterpreted extracts from lived life. Kaskinen’s work is complete once pieces of her soul are added—dusting it with childhood memories, wrapped in the traumatic glory of her teenaged-years and adulthood’s ceaseless pragmatism. Meanwhile, On The Other Side flips the viewpoint. Kaskinen delivers pithy remarks about our most absurd and perplexing experience—life itself.
Heli Kaskinen is a multidisciplinary visual artist who works mainly in photography. In her work, she uses expressions of both photographic and conceptual art. Her works are based on everyday life and often deal comically with real experiences. In 2017, she graduated as Master of Fine Arts from the Academy of Fine Arts and is currently finishing her studies at Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture. Kaskinen has taken part in several solo exhibitions starting from 2016, and group exhibitions in Finland and abroad, incl. Artists 2012 and Young Artists 2013 at Kunsthalle Helsinki and viennacontemporary 2017 in Vienna, Austria.
The artist’s work and the realisation of the exhibition have been kindly supported by the Arts Promotion Centre’s Board for Public Display Grants to Visual Artists, Arts Promotion Centre, the National Council for Visual Arts.
Heli Kaskinen
Meanwhile, On The Other Side
1.–24.11.2019
Photographic Gallery Hippolyte
Yrjönkatu 8 – 10, 00120 Helsinki, Finland
Open: Tue-Fri 12-17, Sat-Sun 12-16