Marja Söderlund’s exhibition Asuntokala has moved out the photographs related to the island’s lost lifestyle, as evidenced by the objects and tools left over from the former fishing farm. The works were filmed in the Ahlaiten archipelago of Pori on a fishing farm, which used to be the residence and workplace of Söderlund’s relatives. Different natural conditions have dominated life on the island: the surrounding sea, weather and wind, ice, low and high water, the passage of fish.
The once important and fundamental professions of fisherman and small farmer have changed and partly disappeared. Old tools are detached secrets and strange creatures without usage information and connection, but valuable in their essence. The weight of the net is that fisherman’s envelope, which hides a stone that is repeated everywhere in the landscape. The raised net carved from cork resembles bread in its surface and shape, it also has a hole.
Tools are used as mediators and enablers; they can be used to change things into another form. In a description situation, old objects function by their essence as tools for imagination and thinking, leading to a new interpretation. By connecting and juxtaposing the constructed image, it is possible to transfer meanings, to search for properties. When handling old objects, you can also find a touch with their creators and previous users from the worn surfaces.
The photographs of the exhibition show different groups of objects, goods juxtaposed to places and to each other. Observations about the island’s weather conditions are also included. The exhibition features series, pairs of images and photo collages depicting phenomena. Söderlund has been dealing with the experience of place and time in his works for a long time. Seriality, associations, possible connections between things and simultaneity are important features in his works.
The names of the works in the exhibition have old local dialect vocabulary. Language also builds layered meanings. In the name of the exhibition, the word asuntokala means, according to the dictionary of Finnish dialects, a fish staying in the same waters .
