HIPPOLYTE STUDIO
Kalevankatu 18 B, 00100 Helsinki, Finland
+358 9 612 33 44, www.hippolyte.fi/studio
Open: Tue-Fri 12:00-17:00, Sat-Sun 12:00-16:00

Rita Jokiranta
Playing with Thoughts
7.-30.11.2008

 

But nothing's lost. Or else: all is translation
And every bit of us is lost in it...
And in that loss a self-effacing tree,
Color of context, imperceptibly
Rustling with its angel, turns the waste
To shade and fiber, milk and memory.

James Merrill: Lost in Translation 1974

 

Interpretation is born at the moment when image is encountered by thought. As interpretation belongs from the outset to the composition of a work, it is an essential part of it – the work is meant to be interpreted, and it acquires meaning only through its interpretation. Otherness and unexpected circumstances are reflected against earlier experiences, and they become merged. Reality and dreams (nightmares) begin to blend. The unrest of the external world creeps into the video sequences, colouring what we see with other meanings. Memory transforms the interpretation of what we have seen and experienced, uncertainties may become truths. Ordinary things and familiar details are juxtaposed with other things, such as media images, and emotions and facts can perhaps no longer be distinguished from each other.

 

In November, Hippolyte Studio presents video works by Rita Jokiranta. Her art often explores the dynamic between image, occurrence and interpretation. The viewer's interpretation has always been an essential aspect of Jokiranta's work, whether the medium she uses is photography or video. Even though Jokiranta tries to avoid stories in her work, there is always a certain narrative in it. Yet we all tell it in our own way. Sound accompanying an image tends to direct our interpretation so much that Jokiranta usually prefers to leave it out. This allows us to focus on visuality and the effects of time, movement and rhythm in the videos.

Rita Jokiranta has previously presented her video works in the form of large-scale projections. For her show in Hippolyte Studio, she will present new and a few previously exhibited videos to see how moving images work when they are shown on screens like photographs. The videos on show are separate and independent works, although some are intended to function jointly to a certain degree.

Rita Jokiranta is a photographic and video artist who lives and works currently in Stockholm, Sweden, and Mariehamn, Finland. Since 1989 she has had several solo and group shows in Finland and elsewhere in Europe, most recently in Helsinki in 2007 (Forum Box) and Gothenburg in 2008 (Galleri Thomassen). Currently she also has a show in Oulu (Northern Photographic Centre/Rantagalleria)

 

For more information, please contact:
Marja Kosunen / Photgraphic Gallery Hippolyte +358 9-612 33 44, info[at]hippolyte.fi

 

Rita Jokiranta: All my tears, 2008 (videostill)