Kastehelmi Korpijaakko’s exhibition Pause is a combination of a campfire site and a makeshift church, a sketch for a performance and a stage without actors. The spatial installation invites the visitor to focus on the silence between words.

The exhibition Pause acts as a request, where the rhetorical significance of the title itself is emphasised. Shared silence is heavy. At the same time, silence can also reveal an opportunity to consider, hesitate, procrastinate, or rest.

The modest installation, built inside Hippolyte Studio, includes flowers in a vase, one photograph, a bench, text, a microphone and an amplifier. The starting point for the body of work is Korpijaakko’s observations on how gallery exhibitions materialise and how they are experienced. The work ponders notions of communication, sadness, and the limitations of human presence.

The exhibition’s themes of grief and silence run side by side. Korpijaakko approaches grief as a non-linguistic, non-conceptual emotion—one which escapes words. As such, it also offers Korpijaakko an opportunity to relate to other similar ineffable uncontrollable and incomprehensible affects. Is exposing grief ultimately the courage to admit one’s vulnerability and thus a chance to build empathy for all beings?

Places are what we do for them, but places are also what we don’t do. Places are there when we are not. This gallery space is not illuminated at night, either.

What is a speaker when it is not plugged in? What is the minimum requirement for quorum, relinquishment, or listening?

The small Risograph printed publication on display in the studio space contains excerpts of text by Milla Alina Martikainen, Petra Vehviläinen, Lotta Djupsund, Tekla Inari, and Kastehelmi Korpijaakko. They relate to Korpijaakko’s performative work Time and Place for a Sermon, which will take place Sunday, October 18, 2020. The authors seek alternatives to traditional forms of a sermon and look for new possibilities regarding communication. The work has been previously performed at Galleria Lapinlahti in 2018 and on Harakka Island in the summer of 2020 as part of the Island Rehearsals performance series.

Kastehelmi Korpijaakko is a visual artist from Helsinki, whose work is based on photography and spatial entities, as well as the practices of performing arts. Thematically, her work revolves around rituals of mourning, ecological guilt, minimalism, and modesty. She graduated with a master’s degree in art from Aalto University in 2018, and her works have been seen in several group and solo exhibitions in Finland and abroad. www.kastehelmikorpijaakko.com

The exhibition is kindly supported by The Paulo Foundation and Arts Promotion Centre Finland. 

EVENT AT THE EXHIBITION (in Finnish):
Saarnan paikka (Time and Place for a Sermon)
Time: Sunday 18.10.2020 at 14-15
Place: Photographic Gallery Hippolyte, Yrjönkatu 8-10 (inner courtyard), 00120 Helsinki

Kastehelmi Korpijaakko‘s performative work Time and Place for a Sermon seeks alternatives to the traditional form of sermon and new possibilities for communication. Talk about climate change, biodiversity loss, and many other concerns in a changing world may often be perceived as preaching and guilty. The work seeks ways to turn the everyday language associations associated with preaching on its head. Time and Place for a Sermon does not involve a Christian belief, but the sermon is approached more generally in the form of speech and event.

The performance will be held at Hippolyte Studio on Sunday 18th October at 14-15 (NOTE! max. 7 people can fit the small space, we recommend wearing a face mask) and in Instagram Live from account @hippolytegallery. If the weather allows, the sound of the performance can also be heard in an urban space outside the gallery. A more detailed location will be announced later.

Time and Place for a Sermon consists of a space built for preaching as well as short performances, the form of which varies between speech, performance, monologue and recitation. The audience can also, if they wish, preach briefly during the work.

On Sunday 18th October we will hear five performances (in Finnish): 
Milla Martikainen: 15 minuuttia ei-minkään tekemisestä
Tekla Inari: Kysymysten saarna
Lotta Djupsund: Kolmas merisaarna
Petra Vehviläinen: Turritopsis Dohrnii – Esitelmä kuolemasta ja kuolemattomuudesta
Kastehelmi Korpijaakko: Muistiinpanoja ruohosta, juurista ja kontrollin historiasta

Kastehelmi Korpijaakko
Pause
Hippolyte Studio
2.10.–25.10.2020
Open: Tue-Fri 12-17, Sat-Sun 12-16

image: Kastehelmi Korpijaakko, Tauko / Muistiinpanoja ruohosta, juurista ja kontrollin historiasta, 2020
exhibition photos: Milla Talassalo