Mika Kiviniemi:
Compiled (Hall 2)

"The exhibition is an installation in which images, surfaces, shapes, vibrations, objects and events overlap in playful interaction. By their nature, the works are a kind of performances of the actions and events related to their production. They are formed as the result of repeated disassembly and reassembly. Perhaps they are some kind of imitations of imaginary observations. Conclusions drawn up in an unknown language. Apparatuses reflecting on their own way of being. Signs that are still searching for their meaning.

The materials of the works consist of various objects, parts of disassembled goods and devices, sculptural elements and photographs, sounds and videos created as a product of experiments with them. The basis of my works is a playful experiment with a specific material, device, object or subject. My works are continuous, changing processes, from which I bring to light the current phase. Instead of individual works, my works are wholes that are built from the interaction of several elements that comment on each other. There is often some kind of performative element in my works. I often approach my works as a kind of performance that describes the event and act of making the work. My background in the field of performance art influences my work in this way.

I feel that my work is an attempt to understand my own relationship to the surrounding reality and the phenomena and objects that appear in it. I am interested in the idea of performing the reality and the hyperreal. In a reality filled with media imagery, it is difficult to distinguish whether fictional images refer to real phenomena or simply to other fictional images produced. Against this idea, I am interested in exploring whether I am trying to depict some real or imagined phenomenon in my works, or whether the works are rather a kind of simulated gestures and performances; imitations of the act of representation."

The Arts Promotion Centre Finland and the Oulun Valistustalo foundation have supported Mika Kiviniemi's exhibition and work.