I tried to capture him in the image but he disappeared, 2024

Video

Yritin šuaha hänet kuvah onnakko hiän kato (Eng. I tried to capture him in the image but he disappeared) was exhibited in the University of the Arts Helsinki, Academy of Fine Arts’ MFA graduation exhibition, Kuvan Kevät 2024.

The starting point of the film is a historical fact: my Viena Karelian ancestor Rimmin Ul´l´aška live-modeled for the second version of Akseli Gallen-Kallela’s Aino Triptych (1891) in the role of Väinämöinen. The painting is one of the most well-known visual symbols in Finnish nationalist visual culture and an index point of the assimilation and appropriation of Karelian culture as part of constructed ’Finnishness.’

Situated in three sites —Rimminkylä, the home village of Ul´l´aška; the family archive; and the Finnish National Gallery’s Ateneum Art Museum — the film is a journey through institutional and private discursive strata. Fragments of a historical exhibition, archival materials, overwritten interview and personal memories form an episodic composition that not only presents marginalized history rearranged but also formalizes its elusive nature.

Ultra HD. 16:9. 12’43 minutes. Original language Karelian and Finnish. English subtitles. Stereo sound. Color and black & white.