The works of the artists participating in Ebb and flow will unfold from the observation of events, temporalities, and tensions at work in the new facilities of the University of the Arts. The works will create relations to different bodily, material, human, and other-than-human processes, that don’t necessarily have a goal. The set of works strives to approach artworks as tentative spaces of cognition, affection, and sensation. The new Sörnäinen campus of the University of the Arts Helsinki is home to the Academy of Fine Arts and the Theatre Academy. Both are also represented in the artist selection for Ebb and flow. One of the questions behind the exhibition is what kind of potentialities the physical coming together of the two academies can open up to the public presentation of art.
The artists participating in the exhibition are students, doctoral candidates and post-doc researchers from both the Academy of Fine Arts and Theatre Academy. Ebb and flow has taken form through discussions between the exhibition’s curator and the artists throughout 2021. The works in the exhibition have found their place in the gallery space through this shared process of sensing and becoming affected.
The curator of the opening exhibition is Riikka Thitz, a curator of contemporary art and performance, who is currently finishing her studies in the Praxis Master’s programme. She is interested in dramaturgy as a tool for curating and especially the concept of landscape dramaturgy. She has previously studied at Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (NL) and Georg-August University in Göttningen (DE). Riikka Thitz has worked in various positions in production and meditating of art. She is a member of Helsinki City Theaters’ curatorial group for contemporary performance 2021–23. The curator was selected by the Exhibition Division at the Academy of Fine Arts based on exhibition proposals that were requested from four Praxis alumni or students at the final stage of their studies.
