Kingdom

In 2007 in University of Arts and Design of Helsinki there was an annual final exam exhibition "Masters of Arts". The exhibiton is known to be huge and messy portrayal of arrogant exhibition building, merely an showcase for the school to portray its own exellence with severe lack of interest especially towards the work from fine arts department. So it was going to be for the year 2007 as the coordinators were more concerned with huge exhibition set build architecture than problematics of presentation of ideas from very different fields in a same room.

This work took place in this fair-like event and its theme is intentionally reclusive. The main point was to have the actual artwork hidden from the corrosive glaze of spectators.

The work is in two different places: first there's "a surveillance room" and then there is "the kingdom".

"The surveillance room" is a small lowered space with two projections and three monitors. As viewer concentrates on the video footage coming from the screens, he is able to recognize a strange looking shack build in some unknown location. Cameras view the house from different angles, some from inside.

"The Kingdom" is that house. It is built from driftwood collected from the beaches of city of Helsinki. Inside the house there is "shrine" with moss, rocks and mummified squirrell built on a rotating plate. It is lit by spotlights that are controlled so that they slowly dim on and off.

"The Kingdom" is study of reclusiveness and the conflict between personal and public. As you feel that the glazes of masses will corrupt and corrode things that you feel precious, why it is that you still feel the urge to exhibit those things so dear to you?