Taidemaalariliitto

The works in my new exhibition began to take shape three years ago. The impulse to create this body of work arose from experiences of urban spaces that have left a lasting impression on me and their connections with ideas about the complex meaning of shared spaces. A fitting backdrop for my starting points is the following:

“Space has the power to preserve, produce and rekindle memories. There is a strong link between space and memory.”

“When I walk in a city, the meanings of the streets are layers composed of personal experiences and memories as well as my encounters with the city, its inhabitants, and their complex histories. Just as meanings are layered for each and every resident and visitor to the city.”

“The notion of lived space underlines the embodied, situated, and ever-changing nature of meanings – a space that is constantly evolving,” writes Kirsi Saarikangas.*

Pathways and a Utopia

The title of my exhibition reflects my collage-like process that draws on various documentary sources, with each work allowed to take its own individual shape. In one piece, classic street layouts give rise to patterns of pathways, while in another, the topography of urban estuaries is shaped by the relentless movement of water. One work is structurally an encounter between a Roman street plan, excavated from volcanic ash, and Intrapolis, the funnel city – visionary concept of 1960s urban utopian Walter Jonas. The painted and the drawn elements of the series are interwoven; I need both, and am entirely at ease with the way they interact.

I frequently find myself returning to the texts of Eeva-Liisa Manner, a Finnish poet who explored the dynamic between space and memory in her work. A case in point is her text Toreja, kaikuja (Squares, echoes) in her book of poems Kirjoitettu kivi (The written stone). Here is an excerpt, in translation:

“I am on the square now, this is a moment of identity, because the square is in me, I am the square. However, the sense of identity presupposes another square that existed before this one, but the space of which is disturbed in time and space; it no longer exists except in my memory. – Which of these two squares is more real? I do not know, nor does it matter; in my mind they are one, their moods are the same. Reality is not out there, it is in my memories, and the warm blue square, right here, right now, is also all those other squares, surrendered long ago.”

Helsinki, 10 August 2024
Pirkko Rantatorikka

*The quotes are from an article by Professor Kirsi Saarikangas about the meaning of space, published in the collection Eletty ja muistettu tila (Lived and remembered space). Finnish Literature Society Eds. T. Syrjämaa, J.Tunturi.

English translation Tomi Snellman

Finnish Painters` Union pays artists an exhibition fee. A state subsidy has been received from the Finnish Heritage Agency for the payment of the fees.