Marja Haapakangas is a video artist, fine artist and visual art teacher from Hevonpää, Finland. She has graduated with Bachelor of Arts from University of Lapland where she has also completed Laudatur studies in arts. Her master’s works deal with environmental performative video art. Her video art and paintings has been installed in Finland in galleries from year 2002. She has also made a music video including dance as an essential part of the video. Her method in film making is bodily as well as deeply mental. Moving with camera is kind of authentic movement. In dance video she occasionally works as a mirror for a dancer. Camera can also be like an extension of a body of film maker.
Maria Laitila works in the field of performing arts and contemporary art pedagogy. Her enthusiasm is grown for the questions of life, communication, consciousness and emotions. She has a Master of Education degree from University of Lapland. She has also completed basic studies in Theatre Education and Dance Pedagogy at Uniarts Helsinki. Her practice is influenced by martial arts, butoh, somatics and creative movement. One could have experienced her performing in TEHDAS theatre, art galleries and happenings in Finland.
Seusuo is a dance video filmed in peatland of Kemijärvi, Lapland. Peatlands are important part of nature’s diversity and their capability to store carbon is meaningful on the age of climate change. A swamp can be considered as a healing fountain or a threatening abyss. It’s a captivating place that hides treasures in its layers. What kind of experiences has it preserved into itself? The artwork pays attention to a post-humanistic point of view. When the artist had to choose the location for the video, they first asked the swamp how it sees them. Nevertheless, the history and memory of a swamp is so long compared to individual human’s time on this planet. At the Biennial the video is set as an installation, that creates a quiet conversation between the video and some industrial produced peat on the floor. Seusuo is a part of the artists’ wider dance video project The Shape of Nature. The contemporary dance videos are like journeys, a review in the matrix of experiences of the inner world and the space where one is present with what is known and what remains unknown.
Seusuo at Art Ii Biennial 2020
Installation will be open:
13 June – 14 June 2020
Sat-Sun 11AM-3PM
16 June – 4 July 2020
Tue-Fri 12-4PM and Sat 11AM-3PM
Closed on Sundays and Mondays and on Midsummer 19 June – 20 June.
Address: Villa Kauppila, Kauppilantie 12, 91100 Ii
Free admission!
