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, where I was isolated for one month. I 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 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. I found from the attic this dirty old cast mold of half the face of a woman. I have no idea who did it. There was also a book I found in the residency house and read. The book was The Storyteller (El Hablador, 1987) by Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa. The book resonated a lot with me since I share a special connection with Peru. The half-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. By clicking the images of art work, you can listen the text in Finnish and Spanish on Vimeo.
The second artwork “Te recuerdo / I Remember you” is painted on top of the Arecibo Message I first painted. “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 was listening to the tree in the other artwork, is now behind the tree, 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 makes a reference to Victor Jara’s song “Te Recuerdo Amanda”. The song is a political hymn and a love song that comments on the precarious labor conditions of the workers.
