The Arecibo Message:
Nyt minä jo kuulen / Ya estoy entendiendo
2020
Te recuerdo / I Remember You
2020
Nyt minä jo kuulen / Ya estoy entendiendo was born during the Residency period in Keuruu. There I was isolated for one month and spent a lot of time walking in the forest. The trees started to have eyes as if it was not only me looking at them. They also looked at me from the knots. The trees gave me company. The residency had a long life, with a lot of memories, artists, and creations before me. I found from the attic this dirty old cast mold of half a face of a woman. I have no idea who had done it. There was also a book I read during the residency. A book that resonated a lot with me since I share a connection and a lot of love for Peru. The book was The Storyteller (El Hablador, 1987) by Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa. The half a face listens to the tree as in the text that is written behind it. In the text, The Storyteller tells how everybody has something to say.
The second artwork Te recuerdo / I Remember you is painted on top of the Arecibo Message I first painted on the canvas. “The Arecibo message is an interstellar radio message carrying basic information about humanity and Earth that was sent to globular star cluster M13 in 1974. It was meant as a demonstration of human technological achievement, rather than a real attempt to enter into a conversation with extraterrestrial”(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message). The code itself looks like, in a way to be the tree of life. The same gypsum mold that looks for the tree or is looked by the tree, is here now printed as if a ghost or a memory behind the tree of life. The face is a memory of somebody being here before, like an echo from the past reminding us of who we are, or who we once have been. Te Recuerdo title is also making a reference to Victor Jara’s song Te Recuerdo Amanda. The song is a political hymn and a love song that is commenting on the precarious labor conditions of the workers.
