Playing with serious matters

The Swiss artist couple Gerda Steiner and Jörg Lenzlinger came to Helsinki in the heat of July to gather material for their work to be displayed at ARS 06 exhibition. For two weeks, they scoured the environs of Helsinki, Juupajoki and Joutseno and came up with the material they needed.

Steiner and Lenzlinger’s large-scale installations are always specifically designed for the given exhibition space, and the materials may range from wild plants to crystals and plastic flowers. Imaginary gardens and fairytale worlds fill up, exploit and shape the entire surrounding space. For ideas, the couple studies not only the exhibition space, but also local history, culture and folklore.

Steiner and Lenzlinger’s works are also often full of playfulness and irony. For example, the installation created in 2003 for La Casa Encendida in Madrid, How Did the Walrus get to Madrid? began with a visit to Madrid’s Museum of Natural History. There the artist couple met half of a stuffed walrus named Lolita, and were left wondering how it got to Madrid, which was inland, and what ever happened to the rest of it. Lolita was eventually let out of the museum to feature in the artwork and was placed in a maritime surrounding consisting of different natural materials.

The thought of a walrus may be amusing, but the theme of the work is serious, as it tells about rootlessness and detachment. The eggplant foliage was gathered from El Edijo greenhouses, where much of the vegetables eaten by Europeans over the winter are grown, tended by immigrant workers. ”We want to turn things upside down and tell stories. For example, in Finnish folklore, the fox is a clever animal, so we could make a work where it would be depicted as stupid,” the artists say. The fun in Steiner and Lenzlinger’s works comes usually from turning things upside down. At the same time, they invite the audience to view things from a new perspective.

FAIRYTALE GARDENS AND ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

The space is a central element in Steiner and Lenzlinger’s works, as the works are designed and built for a specific space. So, the exhibition space is actually part of the work. The Hanging Garden featured at the Church of San Staë during the 2003 Venice Biennale filled the white building, which a doge had built as his final resting place, with a plethora of materials and studied the atmosphere of the church. There were fake flowers, pig’s teeth, seaweed and banana leaves hanging from the ceiling and the audience could walk in the space or lie on a bed on top of the doges tomb-stone and admire the garden above. ”We want our audience inside our works, not just looking at them from the outside,” say the artists.

Another central element in Steiner and Lenzlinger’s works is nature, present in the works from the choice of materials. Some of the works comment on nature and environmental issues, often by way of humour. Les envahisseurs (The Invaders, 2004) was created for Geneva botanical gardens, or in fact in a container in front of it. The idea came from invader plants that spread into new habitats and steal the living space from the area’s original vegetation. The garden built inside the container was in fact a testing ground for what would happen if all sorts of plants, flowers, herbs and endangered grasses were planted in the same space. The plants were planted in old suitcases, handbags and shoes.

Environmental issues are close to Steiner and Lenzlinger’s hearts. ”We have travelled the world and seen many different kinds of environments and also environmental problems. You Finns will be so rich one day, with all this water at your disposal,” the artists pointed out. Their work Root Treatment created for Tel Aviv Art Museum in 2004 discusses the lack of water and arable land, which in much of the world is a burning daily question. The artists borrowed plants that do not grow on soil as their roots hang in the air and they are fed with a mixture of water and nutrients. Beneath the roots, the artists built a fake flower garden. Gradually the saline dripping from the roots crystallised and made the flowers underneath seem like they were covered in snow. Salt is both necessary and detrimental to life. Although plants need nutrients, intensive farming has led to the excessive salin-isation of the soil, and not just in Israel.

A SWING OR A NEST?

The two weeks Steiner and Lenzlinger spent in Finland included trips to Juupajoki and Joutseno. They gathered great amounts of natural materials from the forest. The artist couple also familiarised themselves with Helsinki and its surroundings and the Finnish lifestyle and folklore.

For artists, closeness to nature and tranquillity were qualities that were parti-cularly attractive in Finland. ”People are part of nature and we should take responsibility for our environment. I love how nature is so close here. The forest starts almost from the city centre,” the artists enthuse.

The Kiasma premises also impressed the artists, who already have ideas of what kind of work they would like to build in the tall church-like lobby space. Steiner would like a swing in which the audience could lie down, with a hanging garden above, while Lenzlinger has been thinking about a bird’s nest into which the audience could climb. A third idea is a spring, with stuffed animals around it. The audience would peek into the spring side by side with animals. It remains to be seen, whether any of these ideas will see daylight, or whether there will be com-pletely new plans.

Kiasma’s storage rooms now have a large amount of material awaiting the artists who have returned to Switzerland to work on their ideas. Steiner and Lenzlinger’s work will acquire its final form in December, when the work’s erection begins. ”Although we have ideas and the material is there, the work itself is always ultimately improvisation,” the artists conclude.

Auli Karra