Jarno Vesala: The Second Floor, Please! (installations)

Toinen kerros, kiitos!
Kluuvi Gallery, The Helsinki City Art Museum, Unioninkatu 28 B (inner yard, 3. floor)

Three installations: 1. Palaan pian [I'll Be Right Back] (2009). 2. Tänne [Hitherto] (2009). 3. Siellä [There] (2009).

A rough translation of mine from Jarno Vesala's introductory text:
"Welcome to the staircase, to the floors, and between the floors!
I have produced to the Kluuvi Gallery three installations which are tightly interwoven. They are like sets, seemingly stagnant situations or subtle moments, which characters created via different techniques are living. In the moments, a recent or forthcoming change can be sensed. The change can be related with a loss, death, happiness, or perhaps a total loss of self.
In my works the spectator is a character among others, a part of the story.
In my installations, the tension arises from expectation and from silent encounters between characters present or absent. In the gallery, an absurdly atmospheric world is built from sound, projection, lighting, water, and suggestive objects.
Forgotten relatives, invisible friends, unknown neighbours...
Who is present, who has already left?
Who is being observed? Who has been forgotten?"

A stark and haunting exhibition. The statue of a human being is a projector projecting a moving video image of a staircase with an elevator going up and down. In a reception cubicle there is a surveillance monitor on the screen of which we see ourselves and the reflection of the staircase with the elevator. In another room, there is a large black mirror on the floor, in which is reflected a woman lying face down. We look up and see the statue of the woman nailed to the ceiling face up.