Works by Heli Rekula in Kiasma

"I began to study photography to learn an occupation," says Heli Rekula, "Photography has always been present as an everyday matter in my family. My grandfather photographed and filmed. So did my mother. She developed the films herself and printed all the photographs of my childhood. Thinking of it now, I can see a subconscious continuum."

Ever since her first work, Heli Rekula has contemplated the chosen medium of her artistic practise. "I have considered the camera as a tool or a medium for my artistic work, the event of photography itself, the questions of gaze and objects beneath the gaze. To set someone else or myself as an object, to be looked at, it is a serious question of responsibility." says Rekula.

"My work process is slow. I thought about my video installation Skein for several years. Can I make a work in which two women come together, sitting face to face, winding wool. The work existed in my thoughts, it was there. Sometimes I would set it aside and then return to it again and again. If the idea carries, if it does not open up, or if I cannot explain it to myself, that is when I will do it, because there is something significant in it. By then the work already has a life of its own and deserves to become visible. I can only do my best to realise it."

Kiasma's exhibition on two floors brings together nearly all the works by Rekula to date. The exhibition, due to open in February, will present moving images, photographs and new works never seen before. The exhibition will be complemented by the publication of an exhibition catalogue with articles by Maria Hirvi, Arja Elovirta, Jarmo Valkola and others.

"Kiasma's exhibition allows me to present a temporal continuum of my work. I hope it will show me the way of working, in a gentle way," says Heli Rekula.