HOMO HOMO SAPIENS - IHMISYYDEN LABORATORIO 2020
Installation and artist laboratory for Helsinki Festivals at Gallery Rankka, Helsinki
Group work
Ritual Objects - glass bowls and utensils, Saara Renvall
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Homo Homo Sapiens attempts to create an experimental environment in which we can look at the world together from different angles, ask impossible questions and imagine alternative realities.
For two and a half years, the Homo Homo Sapiens has been engaging in dialogue to explore sensitive topics of our times in relation to the the group’s personal experiences. Based on these discussions the group has now created an artistic laboratory to explore the metamorphoses of the human soul under extreme social, technological, and environmental conditions.
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The laboratory contains a series of spaces in which together with the audience we will examine Decca, a gay man from an alternative reality in which the majority of the population is gay.​ The work created is constantly open and developing, as well as reforming through interaction with the audience. This artistic laboratory also explores new ways of being safely together in the same space, providing all participants with their own physical and mental space to engage together in an experimental fable.
Homo Homo Sapiens attempts to create an experimental environment in which we can look at the world together from different angles, ask impossible questions and imagine alternative realities.
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Group:
Artist Jaakko pesonen, Actor Aleksi Holkko, Art historian Donna Roberts & Philosofer Kai Alanen
with Saara Renvall, Albanor Krashiqi, Amanda Ripatti, Nimco Hussein, Andrea Anastasio
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Project was funded by Kone Foundation at it was part of Helsiki Festival at Galleria Rankka Fri 21.8. – Sun 6.9. 2020​
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Photos Jaakko Pesonen
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RITUAL OBJECTS - Saara Renvall
Through various rituals we touch our identities, search our place in relation to others, the society, the outside world and ourselves. Rituals create inner balance and balance between us and the rest.
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I have felt that the growth of digitalization diminishes our ability to experience things. We need to feel things with our hands to feed our awareness and to create a world that we can perceive through all of our senses. When we create something necessary with time, patience and love, something that meets a real need, it creates a special aura for that object. It comes alive with a magnetic feel.
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Significant part of humanity is being part of a community, living with and by others. When you are alone and connecting with others only via computers, how do you feed your sense of being a human?
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In this installation, objects are mediators. They help Decca to connect with humanity and his inner self. The objects are in service of humanity, reminding one person of compassion, sympathy and consideration for other humans and animals.
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The base of each object is a glass bowl – a most simple form that has served us decades. Each object is a collage made from multiple elements placed within or hanging from one another. Each one consists of an element that serves as a socket or a pod to other elements attached to it. These objects are materialized thoughts of endurance and they represent moments of closeness, togetherness, balance and intimacy. Actions and rituals around these objects aim to touch Decca’s senses, memories and soul. Objects become inherently ritualistic in interaction with the user.
ABOUT DEATH - Saara Renvall
Traditional visualization of death is often a skeleton or a fearful Grim Reaper with a destructive, scary and masculine appearance. I have a different perspective on death; I see it as a renewing force, feminine and fertile. It is a beginning, not just an end. Even with the pain of separation and losing your loved one, I see it as an intelligent force of nature. Death doesn’t fill me with fear, but instead it helps me to be alive. I hope it reminds me every day that whatever time I have left it is exactly the time I need.
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The installation consists of two sculptures created from logs. During the process, my work grew from one sculpture to a set of two, emphasizing my thoughts on death. I like the dialogue two sculptures create, making the installation gentler and easier to approach. The two can be seen as related to each other, as in the sense of parenthood, or seen as two characters in a story.
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Starting point for both sculptures were logs, old leftover bits found from our country house. For me it was fundamentally clear to start creating the sculptures from these cylinders of wood that we have used as fuel to heat our houses and cook our dinners since the early days. Material cut down decades ago was now build back up again.
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Burning of wood changes the material. You experience charcoal instead of wood. Charcoal as such feels old, slightly scary and distant, but still invites you to get closer. Wood, on the other hand, is easier to approach, and has a familiar feeling to it, connecting us easier to its origins and to the environment. These two sculptures are similar and related; there is just time between them.
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While the installation is not meant to be ready or perfect, it reminds us what we should not forget – the value of time.
Death - two wooden sculpture, Saara Renvall
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