7. - 18.3. 2007
solo show, Gallery of Academy of Fine Arts

“You can do anything, if you want to. I want to be a star – the new Madonna.”
Ninja Sarasalo in the Nyt supplement of Helsingin Sanomat, 3/2001

In the video Untitled, a woman is writing the names of various isms in alphabetical order to a blank wall, and then wipes everything off. The video plays on a loop. Everything starts from the beginning again and again. As they cumulate, the words lose their meaning proper, thus reflecting the fate of ideologies in contemporary society. I have studied this theme more closely in the series Embroideries, which consists of framed cross-stitches. Time-consuming and painstaking traditional needleworks are a contradiction to sexy ad slogans that have replaced Bible quotations. Is there anything left to believe in? Is nothing sacred anymore?

I feel that the ambition and avarice that prevail today have a disastrous effect on people. We live materialistically very opulent, but anti-humane times. This is the world where the weak perish, friends get abandoned and elbows worn. Selfishness is certainly part of human nature, but I now refer to an obvious change in society: the commercialization of peoples' relationships and hopes. What do we look for in other people? We see each others as opportunities, not as human beings. Our actions are often calculated for personal gain. What can other people give us? What can we get out of them?

In Western culture, ambition is seen as a positive force. However, ambition means desire for attention and fame. We try to compensate for our inner barrenness, our experiences of humiliation, imperfection and insufficiency. Be busy, prove that you are valuable – or be nothing. It is impossible to satisfy this thirst. We have become slaves to ambition, but we are blind to our shackles.
 
In the West, success means fulfillment. The video Selfportrait is a portrayal of expectations and desires. A small-town girl wants to be something. This semi autobiographical video challenges the motivations for my own actions, too. Why do I do what I do? If I claimed that my art is motivated by higher ideals, and said that I do art to enrich the world, find truth or solve existential questions, it would be extremely naive or even hypocritical and false. The reasons for making art often include such human traits as vanity, self-aggrandisement and need for recognition.

The Selfportrait is made to portray the kind of Finnishness in which we feel that everything is smarter, better and grander elsewhere. Life is like endless dress rehearsal and  continuous overreaching, without a chance to show our true capacities: why no-one sees the genius in me? In the video, life is just miserable trudging through gray bleakness. We wait for summer, for holidays, for retirement, or for that big breakthrough exhibition in New York, for the moment when our life truly begins. There must be a place where life is worth living, where happiness awaits us.

Life is elsewhere, but where? A person moves from place to place, but life is always somewhere else.

February 23, 2007
Helsinki

Emilia Ukkonen