Chance Meetings is an exhibition about the music that I listened to while growing up and the people I met along the way. Some of those people became my friends for years to come and others only for the duration of one song, which was mainly dictated by chance, but they were all important and our shared moments were beautiful. And I do not only mean the moments when we danced and laughed but also when we cried. I do not regret any time when I was present and when I loved. Afterwards, meaning can be given to sorrows as well.
I have explored nostalgia, stories and identity in my artistic and academic work for several years now. A new element in this exhibition is that it focuses on specific people and pop music. Music helps me focus on a moment and later bring back the feeling vividly. Just like with the themes of my works, also through my choice of nostalgic techniques I tell stories of the past.
Athanasía Aarniosuo is an artist, curator and art journalist whose work deals with themes of nostalgia, identity, memory, longing and utopia, through personal stories. Her works reflect her intermingled memories of teenage emotions, music, bands, the streets and clubs of Athens and Glasgow, and childhood ferry trips to the Cyclades. She creates romanticised, sentimental and very subjective environments. The artist lives and works in Vantaa.
