Respect and preservation of nature has been important to him already as a child, and his artist’s life has been shaped accordingly. The result of his artistic work may be for instance a protected area of woodland. Because we live in a time of great change, it is important to try to influence, he says. In his work he ponders the carbon footprint of his art, and has sought means of decreasing it significantly, thus practicing his own “artistic environmental activism”. In his works, he sincerely brings forth how he acts in his artistic process, without attempting to hide the influence of his humanity in his works. For example, starting to paint or burning a sculpture with fire, he inevitably causes a carbon footprint.
Haanpää thinks that our time needs activism: constructively, creatively, and executed within the confines of law. Environmental tax is one example he deems possible, individually self-adjustable. Haanpää has even purchased a protected woodland for himself by investing the entire revenue of his body of work ”Herbarium” in the acquisition of the land. He hopes that people will do good for the sake of our collective future, although the ”powers that be” act in completely different fashion. In his opinion, every individual can make a difference in their achievements and choices. Dissenters and nonconformists are needed in this country, where supranational mining companies reserve land areas recklessly and in questionable ways.
PROCESS
I become empty and I do emptying – thereof originates the KALVO exhibition, or MEMBRANE. One goal of KALVO was to set up an exhibition for which no new material was bought. With a clear expextation of an understanding of our consumption. Of what we leave behind, even through death. Finally I did, however, order a photograph of myself, for which I paid money. Markets continue on their ways, stock exchanges collapse, only to rise again; being whose project and with what means? Which membranes would you like to puncture in order to prove someone else’s iniquity? Are you prepared to face your own iniquity?
Art is a sign and a trace of human to another human, a vision from and into otherness. A delusion of selfhood, one man’s vision is a different vision. Who sees and who experiences? What about what’s in between, understanding or preconception? Spiritual pitfalls galore.
Consumption – mine and yours. Crushing commodity. Weight of a living elk, how about a fillet on your plate? Endless consumption. Trails left in the past, to be lifted onto the wall. Trust in life, although the Amazon no longer devours; it releases. What does it mean to be rich while ecological diversity becomes poorer? How much does a man cost and who is the price paid to? I still didn’t understand, I dream on.
In a self portrait I am buried under tree bark, to point out my own doings. How much does one need in order to decay/burn in peace, or is it all about preparing for a long dream, but when is the right time to wake up? I don’t want to burst my bubble in vain. When would the bubble close up again, and from whose bubbles would it take hits before a new shelter? Eventually I face my worst fears, my enormous primitive phobias, partly inherited as a gift. How does one encounter, with fear or with love? And the other one?
Whose is this dream? I suspect a fisherman, after fish or happiness. Can he be trusted, auguries of death floating as shadows in the air. Jackfish (northern pike) lurking in the bed of reeds, mistaking your arm for provision. Your phobia has descended from heaven, just like other deities. It strikes in the dark waters, without a warning. You sink under the surface, the last breath dissolving in the water, in a world unknown to you. Then you see the beauty, remember the courage and you regret your deeds. Scrabbling back to surface, encountering your own reality as new, broken and at the same time the most beautiful in the world. Unprecedented and broken up. The prowler descends to the bottom again, and no, your flesh was not to its taste.
Consciousness of reality. Mine, yours and ours. Of nations, and of the world? Who regulates for you, are you ready for life by your own? Quoting the rock band Sielun Veljet (Brothers of the Soul): ”I have a dream, a free world, with no borders.” Communication, history and roots. Understanding. Commercialism, death and reality. Everything simmers. Broken humanity, pages never reach the end.
Two weeks into the exhibition opening, mother dies, although not from corona. The last years in the ”safety” of her own home, the world opening behind the windows. I face death and the Latvian Mara Goddess’ energy amidst the shadows of trees in the middle of the night. I am not afraid, of anything. I am the warrior, I have to be stronger than myself. I am ready to shout everything out. Finally, I am unable to stop screaming.
MANUAL
Don’t babble man, let alone commit to the context. Be an animal, try to live. Sense, don’t try to explain. I do not understand your language, I am already a different creature.
Instance is elsewhere, the building has collapsed. See me in the dust, what is left, walk over me and I shall grab you, but never in full. Nothing else can I give, and nothing else shall you get.
Did you forget to wash your hands? An animal licks its own paws, effacing its trails, lapping me into its quiddity. Man flushes into the nearest sewer. I am no longer here, I am elsewhere to never return.
Be unleashed, stay free. Wander into the unforgotten dusk of your memory. Bend down into your innermost, sense your roots. Lean on a straw. Do it firmly, may that be your holiness. Be an animal.
