In Tiina Palmu’s video piece Rasskaztšitsa the artist recites a story she has memorized, in a language she does not speak. The story of 16 piglets at Christmas was originally told to her by a Moldovian woman and is shared in the piece by the artist as if her own.

Tiina Palmu met a woman in Helsinki who told her a story from her life in Moldova. After memorizing it in Russian the artist travelled 1800 km to Moldova, to a village where the woman had lived and the events taken place around 60 years ago. There she repeated the story to the villagers who wanted to listen. During the act of reciting the story the artist’s repetitive learning process was counterweighed by a completely uncontrollable situation.

At the core of Tiina Palmu’s piece is the attempt to engage through language, and finally the breakdown of communication when the meanings do not meet. ”I could repeat a very concrete sentence, like there were 16 piglets born, and the Russian speaking listener gets that information. The same spot in the story for me is a rise on top of a black and yellow hill, after which there comes a plane,” the artist explains. The piece also carries the traditional continuum of storytelling, inherited through generations, moulding each individual. The name of the exhibition, Rasskaztšitsa, is Russian and translates to a storyteller, which is the perceived role of the artist in the piece.

Tiina Palmu, MA (b. 1984) is an artist based in Helsinki. Her works consist mainly of video installations, often based on a strictly defined act or skill learned by the artist, expanding as a symbol for the meanings surrounding it. Tiina Palmu’s works have been shown in both solo and group exhibitions in addition to Finland also in Iceland and Sweden. One of her video pieces is included in the collections of The Fund of Päivi and Paavo Lipponen, deposited in The Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma. This summer it will be shown as a part the Lipponen collection exhibition at Salon Dahlman in Berlin. The Finnish Art Society, Arts Promotion Centre Finland and Alfred Kordelin Foundation have supported the making of Rasskaztšitsa.

Thank you Galina Fedorchuk for sharing the story.

3.–26.3.2017
TIINA PALMU
Rasskaztšitsa

Photographic Gallery Hippolyte
Yrjönkatu 8–10 courtyard, 00120 Helsinki, +358 9 612 33 44, www.hippolyte.fi
Opening hours: Tue–Fri 12–5 pm, Sat–Sun 12–4 pm

(image: Tiina Palmu)