Thursday, May 11, 2023, 19.00
11 –27 May 2023
→ CCB, Art Gallery, Knez Mihailova 6
The Distance That Connects
In me there are two distant but still close places, two cultures that define me as a person and as a creator. In order to see and understand what unites them, distance is needed.
“Distance That Connects” is not a retrospective but, above all, a self-examination in which the past and the present together form the future. It is the moment in which the artist moves away from his work in order to figure out how to proceed. The thirty-five-year creative opus has been translated into a mental landscape in which reason and emotions, dream and reality, order and chaos, unusual and ordinary are intertwined. The gallery becomes a place.
Chronological wall
Out of the multitude of realized projects, fourteen of them with different functions and character are presented in chronological order. Each project, from idea to realization, represents an average of two years in an architect’s life. Projects are lived. The amount of visual material accumulated over time in each project is shown on the slides. Fourteen screens in a row form a pulsating timeline that speaks of the continuity of creation, but also enables “diving in depth” into each individual project.
Thematic wall
Every object that I have designed is inseparable from its context and that makes it special, but at the same time it contains some universal values that go beyond the physical boundaries of the location, values that can be transposed into other contexts as a model of thinking. Designing is at the same time a process of learning and growing up. After each project, we are richer for one experience, and when the projects have been lined up continuously for 35 years, it is necessary to step away from the “canvas” and “connect the dots” in search of new values and knowledge.
Monument to playing
I perceive architecture as an invitation to play. When Finland experienced an unprecedented depression in the early 1990s, many projects were put on hold and designers were sent on forced leave. Some new form of play had to be invented. I have created a series of small construction elements – assembly toys for which the Foundation of Finnish Inventors awarded me financial support for further development of the idea. Unlike many architectural exhibitions, this display does not have models, but it has two abstract sculptures made from those elements. They are a monument to playing.
Playing creates a new reality and changes our perception of time and place. And, best of all, it never ends.
The accompanying catalog of the exhibition Distance that connects, can be seen at this link: https://www.flipsnack.com/AD8A57BBDC9/distance-that-connects-exhibition-catalogue-h3frf5pd1j.html
