Evita Vasiljeva, Shelters of the longest night, 2024, Steel, prints on textile, lamps, wires, needles / Echo, 2024, Six-channel sound installation, delay pedal, piezo microphones, movement detectors / Drooms, 2024, Etchings of dreams on photographs, ink
Sauli Sirviö, EXIT I 2008-2024, aluminum plate, digital Lambda print, spray paint, inkjet print, plastic, wood, inkjet print on fiberglass / Blueprint VI 2008-2024, aluminum plate, digital Lambda print, spray paint, pencil, inkjet print, wood, inkjet print on fiberglass, metallic clock hands, drill bit, paper, demolition dust and keys from Jätkäsaaren Bunkkeri, 2024 / Blueprint VII 2008-2024, aluminum plate, digital Lambda print, spray paint, wood, inkjet print on fiberglass / EXIT II 2015-2024, Diasec, spray paint, pencil, paper, inkjet print on fiberglass, inkjet prints, wood, plastic, stain paint, metal
Evita Vasiljeva, Shelters of the longest night, 2024, Steel, prints on textile, lamps, wires, needles / Echo, 2024, Six-channel sound installation, delay pedal, piezo microphones, movement detectors
Sauli Sirviö, Blueprint IV 2008-2024, Dipond plate, digital Lambda print, spray paint, pencil, inkjet print, wood, inkjet print on fiberglass / EXIT I 2008-2024, aluminum plate, digital Lambda print, spray paint, inkjet print, plastic, wood, inkjet print on fiberglass
Sauli Sirviö, Hand I 2024, inkjet print on fiberglass, tin, copper
Sauli Sirviö, EXIT I 2008-2024, aluminum plate, digital Lambda print, spray paint, inkjet print, plastic, wood, inkjet print on fiberglass
Sauli Sirviö, Blueprint VI 2008-2024, aluminum plate, digital Lambda print, spray paint, pencil, inkjet print, wood, inkjet print on fiberglass, metallic clock hands, drill bit, paper, demolition dust and keys from Jätkäsaaren Bunkkeri, 2024 / Blueprint VII 2008-2024, aluminum plate, digital Lambda print, spray paint, wood, inkjet print on fiberglass / EXIT II 2015-2024, Diasec, spray paint, pencil, paper, inkjet print on fiberglass, inkjet prints, wood, plastic, stain paint, metal / Coil 2015-2024, Diasec, wood, inkjet print on fiberglass, spray paint, inkjet prints / Hand II 2024, inkjet print on fiberglass, tin, copper / Hand III 2024, inkjet print on fiberglass, tin, copper / Blueprint VIII (2008-2024), Dipond plate, inkjet prints, wood, inkjet print on fiberglass, metal, paper, spray paint, film negative from demolished AGA headquarters 2017 / • • Answer to any signal 2008-2024, aluminum plate, digital Lambda print, spray paint
Evita Vasiljeva, Shelters of the longest night, 2024, Steel, prints on textile, lamps, wires, needles / Echo, 2024, Six-channel sound installation, delay pedal, piezo microphones, movement detectors
Sauli Sirviö, Blueprint VI 2008-2024, aluminum plate, digital Lambda print, spray paint, pencil, inkjet print, wood, inkjet print on fiberglass, metallic clock hands, drill bit, paper, demolition dust and keys from Jätkäsaaren Bunkkeri, 2024
Sauli Sirviö, Hand II 2024, inkjet print on fiberglass, tin, copper
Sauli Sirviö, EXIT II 2015-2024, Diasec, spray paint, pencil, paper, inkjet print on fiberglass, inkjet prints, wood, plastic, stain paint, metal / Coil 2015-2024, Diasec, wood, inkjet print on fiberglass, spray paint, inkjet prints / Sauli Sirviö, Hand III 2024, inkjet print on fiberglass, tin, copper / • • Answer to any signal 2008-2024, aluminum plate, digital Lambda print, spray paint / Blueprint VIII (2008-2024), Dipond plate, inkjet prints, wood, inkjet print on fiberglass, metal, paper, spray paint, film negative from demolished AGA headquarters 2017
Evita Vasiljeva, Shelters of the longest night, 2024, Steel, prints on textile, lamps, wires, needles / Echo, 2024, Six-channel sound installation, delay pedal, piezo microphones, movement detectors
Sauli Sirviö, Hand III 2024, inkjet print on fiberglass, tin, copper
Sauli Sirviö, EXIT II 2015-2024, Diasec, spray paint, pencil, paper, inkjet print on fiberglass, inkjet prints, wood, plastic, stain paint, metal / Coil 2015-2024, Diasec, wood, inkjet print on fiberglass, spray paint, inkjet prints
Sauli Sirviö, Coil 2015-2024, Diasec, wood, inkjet print on fiberglass, spray paint, inkjet prints
Evita Vasiljeva, Drooms, 2024, Etchings of dreams on photographs, ink
Evita Vasiljeva, Shelters of the longest night, 2024, Steel, prints on textile, lamps, wires, needles / Echo, 2024, Six-channel sound installation, delay pedal, piezo microphones, movement detectors
Sauli Sirviö, Blueprint VIII (2008-2024), Dipond plate, inkjet prints, wood, inkjet print on fiberglass, metal, paper, spray paint, film negative from demolished AGA headquarters 2017
Sauli Sirviö, Blueprint V 2008-2024, metallic clock hands, drill bit, paper, demolition dust and keychain from Long Island City, NY 2019, keys
Evita Vasiljeva, Shelters of the longest night, 2024, Steel, prints on textile, lamps, wires, needles / Echo, 2024, Six-channel sound installation, delay pedal, piezo microphones, movement detectors
Blueprint VII 2008-2024, aluminum plate, digital Lambda print, spray paint, wood, inkjet print on fiberglass
• • Answer to any signal 2008-2024, aluminum plate, digital Lambda print, spray paint
Sauli Sirviö’s new publication 𝑨𝒓𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈 ‘𝒆𝒏 𝒑𝒍𝒆𝒊𝒏 𝒂𝒊𝒓’ brings together projects and works created by Sirviö in Helsinki, Paris, and New York in recent years. The photographs and other visual materials are accompanied by a text by 𝗠𝗶𝗶𝗻𝗮 𝗛𝘂𝗷𝗮𝗹𝗮, sharing the same title as the book. This text delves into the vibrant world behind Sirviö’s works:
The publication is made up of pages printed on a variety of papers and other materials. The printing is handcrafted using inkjet and laser printing, as well as Helsinki sunlight burning.
The book is published in a limited edition of 100 copies and will be released in parallel with the duo exhibition 𝑳𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒓 𝒍𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒍 𝒉𝒊𝒅𝒅𝒆𝒏 𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒎𝒔 at SIC (30.11.2024–19.1.2025) by 𝗘𝘃𝗶𝘁𝗮 𝗩𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗹𝗷𝗲𝘃𝗮 and Sauli Sirviö.
UTU 022 • ISBN 978-952-65274-4-4 • 50 pages • A4 • Printed and bound in Helsinki 2024• Edition of 100 copies.
𝑨𝒓𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈 ‘𝒆𝒏 𝒑𝒍𝒆𝒊𝒏 𝒂𝒊𝒓’ is supported by Kone Foundation, Arts Promotion Centre Finland and Niilo Helander Foundation
An Odd Old Passageway at NSFW curated by Ida Lehtonen.
Exhibition text by the curator:
There is no such thing as an anachronism. Look inside your mind: does it contain only one era?[1]
The hands of the clock have stopped at MAI. The doors to the sleeping cars have disappeared a long time ago, but the code of the key cards remains intact. In the exhibition An Odd Old Passageway by the Finnish artist Sauli Sirviö a palimpsest of images and found materials turn time into wax.[2]
Photographs are the ground of Sirviö’s work yet they don’t aim just to point to a moment frozen in time. The places he visits and documents and the materials he collects from them materialise as images and objects that fluctuate between different layers of time. Sirviö searches for spaces in a liminal state: hidden, in ruins, out of function, some soon to be demolished and lost forever. Materials, details, forms, and experiences found in these sites become sculptures and installations in an instant of synchronicity. Each piece follows its lifecycle with no absolute final form: sculptural components transform into new experiments or return to the hard infrastructure[3] to become new images and objects. In his latest work, Sirviö returns also to drawing. A book on the fire security of high-rise buildings[4] (High-Rise Security and Fire Life Safety by Geoff Craighead (2009), archival images from the Picture Collection,[5] among others, are drawn copies, copies of copies, that transcend the documentary and turn into fiction. [6]
In An Odd Old Passageway the past, the present, and the future cross paths in three metropolitan areas: in the utopia of Noisyle-Grand,[7] the mega infrastructure projects of Pasila,[8] and New York’s high “cathedrals of commerce”. [9] The ruins and the subterranean caches look skywards: the urban wastelands of old industrial areas and waterfronts are being disposed of at an accelerating pace making way for future high-rise buildings. Skyscrapers[10] have taken root deep down in the ground, but permanence is always fleeting. There will always be new ruins.[11]
“That is what fascinates me about my sculptures, that they are really fragile, they are flaking all the time. However, that fragility can also be seen in the skyscrapers, it can be seen everywhere: it repeats the reality we are in”.[12]
Aluminium, paper, silver, fibreglass, egg cartons, plastic, pencil, soil, plaster: the materials in Sirviö’s installations and sculptures are organic, fragile, sometimes prone to mould, or on the other hand, toxic, even aggressive. “I like the chaotic side of it, I like being in trouble with my materials. You never know what willhappen”, he laughs as we talk on Zoom. Chaos makes following the materials a natural part of the process. The materials reflect the ephemerality, oddness, and hazards in the places.
“If you think of the city as a sculpture, then we are like inside a sculpture where things happen all the time. Houses flake, the sun corrodes their surfaces, and people produce information on papers that are shredded, some of it is secret, and it can be found on the streets. People come from outside of New York, along the ring roads, they flake and drop stuff, throwing things out of the car windows. I try to collect all that debris around me and figure out how it got there”.[13]
There is a duality to Sauli Sirviö’s practice. Control and chaos, relics and waste, archival practices and vanishing information, preserving and destroying alternate in our conversations leading to the exhibition. Sirviö compares his work to archaeological excavations. At the same time, he uses the Finnish word louhinta, mining or extraction of sourcing materials for his work. Semantically, mining can refer to the “extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth”,[14] but also to searching through information for specific data or patterns.[15] The materials he extracts are not rare earth minerals as such, but rather debris, soil, and discarded everyday items and materials. The materials always embody information but where the modern archaeologist might build a narrative around the finds,[16] Sirviö follows the material to disjoint us, leaving the temporal dots unconnected. The work is dense in memories, but it is in the nature of memory to blur, change, and take new forms over time.[17] However, even when the images are obfuscated, dim, fragmentary, or only indicative of the original image, they always reveal something to us. Documenting the liminal places is a way to go back in time and remember them even after they are gone.[18] In itself, it is an act against the capitalist objective of forgetting.
Philosopher Tere Vadén writes: Only in the landfill or on the waves of the sea will the true raw material of the capitalist product ideal be revealed: a universal shred that can be anything. It could have been anything and it could become anything.[19]
[1] Anne Carson in conversation with Niko Hallikainen. (2024, May 1)
art-2000010386231.html Quote translated from the interview. “Sellaista asiaa kuin anakronismi ei ole olemassa. Katso omaan mieleesi: sisältääkö se vain yhden aikakauden?”
[2] In the short story “Ajan huone” the character Donna Quijote describes
time as wax. From Krohn, L. (1983) Donna Quijote ja muita kaupunkilaisia.
