Kukka-Maria Rosenlund’s exhibition Syli deals with touch through physical memories, childhood and fantasy, mortality and the desire for freedom. The artist combines photography with a material-based approach, and the exhibition at Galleria Huuto features photographs on ceramics and textiles. Rosenlund’s works are based on an underlying idea of material imagination: the sense of touch can awaken one’s unconscious imagination, just like images. Touch involves special awareness of the here and now, yet it also causes time to unravel on the timeline of various distances or generations’ history. Rosenlund uses various house building materials and natural materials in her works. The ceramic works made of stoneware clay and gypsum include various glossy glazes, stones, plants and seashells. The works were made in 2021 and 2022 in Finland and Andalusia, Spain.
“The Finnish word ‘syli’ means being surrounded by something or being in someone’s arms. For me, it is a sort of starting point. It is not a permanent place; it is a temporary and ever-changing space with tactile figments of imagination and touches of invisible memories. Perhaps it is a question that emerges from the depths of the subconscious, a question of how life first starts there, then distancing oneself and, in the end, finding one’s way back there. In my photographic work, I have shifted more towards a material-based approach, in which the process becomes an essential part of the content of my works. The process is slow, consists of several steps and also involves doing things with my hands. I am interested in some kind of uncontrollable material twists and, by combining photography and ceramics, I am able to work with physical memories and deal with very personal issues.”
Kukka-Maria Rosenlund (b. 1987, Tampere) is a visual artist who works with photography and sculpture. In her works, Rosenlund examines the layered nature of memory and identity by combining camera art with material-based work. Her works have been on display at solo and group exhibitions in both Finland and abroad, most recently at the Mältinranta Artcenter in Tampere (2022), Copenhagen Photo Festival (2021), Photographic Gallery Hippolyte in Helsinki (2020), Transeurope Photography in Athens (2019) and the Finnish Museum of Photography in Helsinki (2018). Rosenlund graduated from Aalto University with a Master of Arts in Photography in 2020. In addition, she has studied photography at the Turku Arts Academy (2010–2014) and in Antwerp, Belgium (2013), as well as film in Buenos Aires, Argentina (2018). Her works are included in the collections of the Finnish Museum of Photography and Tampere Art Museum and in the Finnish state art collection.
