Between the Acts incorporates a video, sculptures and multifarious objects, alongside supportive structures for a custom-built installation within Hippolyte’s Studio space. At the same time, a video camera films the arrangement and projects it as a separate moving image. Perspectives and relationships to the elements shift as the viewer moves inside the room, in contrast to the eye of the camera which perpetually remains static. Between the Acts is a continuation to Eeva-Riitta Eerola’s and Jenni Toikka’s previous exhibition Double Take at Turku Art Museum’s Studio in 2017.

For Eerola and Toikka, the collaboration has opened up new possibilities for experimentation, and play, apart from their individual practices. Instead of a singular author, all parts interrelate as a result of dialogue—a collaboration where each artist’s words or actions resonate into a reciprocal new action. Elements retain their sketch-like, processual quality, and delicately manage to balance the border of finished and unfinished. Further, through collaborative exploration, shared relationships to modernism, its visual language, and its broader culture manifestations, began to emerge. In the work, for example, this is seen through the questioning of modernity’s view on humanity and its relationship to nature. Topically this narrative weaves its way through various parts of the installation, suffused both consciously and intuitively as a lingering tension. This highlights how we might unknowingly carry with us modernity’s aesthetics and presumptions of a “good life”. 

Between the Acts builds inside it different layers of temporality and spatiality. The imaginary border, between inside and outside proposed in the window-esque video piece, wavers as its constructions are slowly disassembled. The temporal delays, and the tension between the moving and the static, guide the viewer in examining the connections between components of the installation. Different forms, elements, and symbols react with each other as the gaze travels in the space between objects and events. All the while there remains a conflict between the viewer’s personal spatial experience and the projected image—uncovering a particular role information mediated by the camera lens has on the construction of reality.

Eeva-Riitta Eerola and Jenni Toikka met while studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in the University of the Arts Helsinki. Their next joint exhibition will be at Maison Louis Carré, in France 2019.

Eeva-Riitta Eerola is known best for her abstract paintings. She studied at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-arts de Paris and received her MA in Helsinki from the Academy of Fine Arts in 2010. Her works have been exhibited internationally in both solo and group shows, including Galleri Bo Bjerggaard in Copenhagen and Gallery Jaus in Los Angeles. Her latest solo show in 2017 took place at Helsinki Contemporary, and she is preparing for an upcoming exhibition there for 2019. Eerola’s works are included in numerous collections, including the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, the Saastamoinen Foundation, Sara Hildén Art Museum and the Wihuri Foundation. www.eevariittaeerola.com

Jenni Toikka is a Helsinki based visual artist working predominantly with moving images. Toikka graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in 2012. She has had several solo exhibitions in Helsinki including Gallery Sinne, Forum Box and Kluuvi Gallery. Her next exhibition will be at HAM Gallery in the autumn of 2019. Jenni Toikka’s video pieces have been shown internationally in group exhibitions and at festivals. Her work is represented  in the collections of the Saastamoinen Foundation and the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma. jennitoikka.blogspot.com

The artists would like to thank Taru Elfving, Mika Hannula, and Sami Kustila for their help, and the Arts Promotion Centre Finland for support.

Eeva-Riitta Eerola & Jenni Toikka
Between the Acts

3–26 August 2018
Hippolyte Studio
Open: Tue–Fri 12–17, Sat–Sun 12–16