Resi-dual

Mara Kirchberg and Milka Luhtaniemi

5. – 21.4.2024

Opening of the exhibition: Thursday 4 April, 17–19

Resi-dual is an exhibition by cross-disciplinary artist Mara Kirchberg (Tallinn) and poet Milka Luhtaniemi (Helsinki). The artists have been interested in working with the concept of dualities, and softening these dualities into forms of co-existences. The works subtly reference the discordant residues of an oil-driven economy whilst dreaming of richer textures of co-existing with biological life. 

The installations and sculptures of Mara Kirchberg reference moments in which systems break down or are temporarily out of order; she has worked with synthetic membranes and PVC hoses traversed by dysfunctional car fluids composing bodies that seem to breathe, leak and co-mingle like biological bodies. Kirchberg’s works in the exhibition are fragments of a larger body of work living off residues from its animate state, sitting in silence and resting before reconnecting to the cycle.


The text works of Milka Luhtaniemi speak to the precarious nature of day and night cycles, folding together the ideas of day and night with the tangible growth cycles of plant life and fungi, bridging the gap between what could be understood as the divide between day (reason) and night (the body). Luhtaniemi will show two works in the exhibition: one a printed textile work and the other a publication called Päiväkirja (The Book of Days). The graphic design of the publication is by Aliisa Perikangas.

The artists have previously worked together, making an exhibition for K17 Space for Art and Ecology in Sipoo in late 2023. 



Bio

Milka Luhtaniemi (she/her, based in Helsinki) is a poet and multidisciplinary artist who works in between literature, performing arts and fine arts. She graduated from the Theatre Academy with an MA in dramaturgy in 2020. Her debut book of poetry Kirnu (‘Churn’) came out in 2021 published by Gummerus and was received positively, and her second book Tauoton (‘Unceasing’) came out in February 2024. Her multidisciplinary works have been shown in Titanik (Buoyancy 2021) and Forum Box (Second Species 2021, with Joonas Siren). She has also shown installations and collaborative works in Contemporary Art Centre Muu, Oksasenkatu 11 gallery, B-galleria and Mad House. In her thinking she often combines bodily affects and emotions with meditative spatial perception.

Mara Kirchberg (she/her) is an artist based in Tallinn whose installations, sculptures and performances deal with the materiality of flesh and boundary objects such as organs and casings. By opening interior spaces to the outside, she explores how human, otherwise living and mechanical bodies function and break down. Dysfunctional car parts and fluids merge with sanitary and medical equipment into weak systems that rely on regular manual care and maintenance. As such, they reflect the fragility of life and the robustness of its surroundings. Her formal education includes the studies of Choreography and Performance (MA) at the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies in Gießen and Contemporary Art (MA) at the Estonian Academy of Arts. In 2023, she received the Young Sculptor Award and the Eduard Wiiralt scholarship in Tallinn.

The opening will take place on 4th April at 17 - 19. There will be a short performative reading at 18. The performative reading will be in Finnish.