Kaisa Salmi‘s exhibition brings a sea of tens of thousands of plastic bottles to Photographic Gallery Hippolyte in September. Behind the work lies Salmi’s concern for the fate of the oceans in the current situation, where billions of kilos of plastic from e.g the tourism industry, sewage, the fishing industry and sea traffic end up in the oceans each year. Through the sea, plastic affects all living beings, besides as massive trash islands in the oceans, also as microplastics that end up as a part of our food.
In Finland, plastic is reused. We recycle up to 90 % of all plastic bottles, and they do not end up in the sea. However, plastic is consumed here just as in other countries. Kaisa Salmi’s The Bottle Sea invites the exhibition visitor to swim amidst a sea taken over by plastic and to ride its plastic waves. The work strives to awaken thoughts in the visitors through experience and corporality.
As a part of the exhibition you can experience a sound landscape by Esa Kotilainen.
N.B., exhibition visitors are welcome to move about in the bottle sea! However, please note that going amidst the bottles is at one’s own risk, and children should always be accompanied by an adult. Take care of your possessions (mobile phones, wallets, glasses etc.), Photographic Gallery Hippolyte is not responsible for items lost in the bottle sea.
On Wednesday 9 September 2015 at 5 p.m., there will be a discussion in the gallery space touching the themes of the Baltic Sea, plastic and their shared future. Discussion in Finnish.
Participants: Satu Hassi (Member of Parliament, chairperson of the Parliament’s Environment Committee), Vesa Kärhä (CEO, Finnish Plastics Industries Federation), Outi Setälä (researcher, Finnish Environment Institute SYKE), Anu Miettinen (provincial artist in environmental art) and Esa Kotilainen (composer).
Kaisa Salmi (b. 1968) is a Master of Arts and Theatre Arts and a doctoral student at the Aalto University. Salmi is known for environmental, performance and participatory art. She has put people down for a nap in the middle of the city’s streets, closed off a street and covered it with grass for a picnic and transformed one into a rose garden with 38 000 rose bushes. She has also covered the stairs of the Finnish Parliament building with a sea of gerberas. She has brought 18 000 kg of plastic waste in front of the Kamppi shopping centre in Helsinki. In the spring of 2013 she directed the grand performance and film titled “Fellman’s Field – 22 000 people’s living monument” in Lahti.
4 – 27 September 2015
KAISA SALMI
The Bottle Sea
Photographic Gallery Hippolyte
Yrjönkatu 8–10 courtyard, 00120 Helsinki, Finland
+358 9 612 33 44, www.hippolyte.fi
Tue–Fri 12–17, Sat–Sun 12–16