New body of work
(a)round
coming in summer 2023!
Mari Kaakkola (b. 1995, Loppi) is an artist born, raised and based in the Finnish countryside, using her family background and knowledge of farming as a tool for her artistic work. She studies the environmental impacts of her processes and sees the aim to be more ecological as an exciting opportunity to find new viewpoints and methods of working as an artist as well as a farmer.
Her works draw their inspiration and materials from symbiosis, circulation, old used materials of her own and others, and from her observations of her mainly non-human companions.
Mari is currently studying a MA in Photography at the Aalto University.
This photograph is still growing
2021
This photograph is still growing is a photographic work by a farmer's daughter, in collaboration with the farmed plant, Timothy the Grass (Phleum pratens) and the gallery staff taking care of the living work.
The paper under the seeds was once a newspaper with an article about diversity in the Finnish forests, and once probably a tree in one of those forests. Before that, I do not know. Living becomes dead and dead living again, going in loops, fuelling each other to become other. We humans depend on – and are indirectly part of – Calvins Cycle, a "dark reaction" that is despite its name, dependent on light reactions. The Timothy grass on this paper is one of the plants that are part of the C3 group that use Calvins Cycle as a part of their process to produce sugars and oxygen out of carbon dioxide, and eventually show a green colour on their bodies.
Without much light, the Timothy grass can produce less green and appears paler than the Timothy that is in direct light. The process is very much like in the darkroom with traditional photography. The seeds can act like the smallest parts of images – pixels or grain – and produce a living and constantly reactive image.
In This photograph is still growing I emphasise the idea of a cycle in every decision I made on the way; from choices of material to grow on, to the wood used in exhibition installation. Majority of all the materials are recycled and reworked on; old newspapers and my test prints, panels from the walls of my childhood room, surplus from my dads wood workshop. Old pieces of art create new ones, and continue to do so after this – be it in the materiality or in the ideas.
These exhibition documentations are from a group show Buy grapes, plums, get to know yourself in Porvoo Taidehalli in 2021.
