Artists – IC-98
A View from the Other Side, 2011
AV-arkki
Tallberginkatu 1 / 76
Helsinki 00180
Finland
T: +358405570320
E: director@av-arkki.fi
W: www.av-arkki.fi
IC-98 is artists Visa Suonpää (b. 1968) and Patrik Söderlund (b. 1974). IC-98 projects often take the form of installations or publications, combining research, drawing and animation. Their intensely abstracted, identifiable visual language weaves myriad bridges between the material and mythical, individual and collective, nature and culture. The investigations running through the works concern the body politic, social formations and architectural constructions, heresies and pure systems of thought, and the presence of history in everyday life. The group was awarded the Finnish State Prize for Visual Arts in 2009, and the same year they also won the first prize at the Turku Biennial. In addition to the exhibitions in Finland, the works of IC-98 have been shown e.g. in New York, Buenos Aires and London. IC-98 represents Finland in the 2015 Venice Biennial.
A View from the Other Side depicts the 1836 built Gylich colonnade in Turku, Finland, and its transformations across centuries. Originally stores serving the fishing port used to operate behind the Doric columns. Later the space has functioned, amongst others, as a bazaar, a restaurant, a cafe and a petrol station. In the 2010’s the city sold the property to private owners.
The portico was modeled after the ancient Greek stoa, the only public building in the agora, which had no predefined use. Stoa could thus be seen as a model for free civil society. The work is based on this interconnection between architecture and politics. The portico, the river and the street in between them form a stage without people. The idea was to create a play with time, weather and nature as protagonists. In this narrative, where multiple temporal rhythms are layered in a seamless moving image, humans are just a fleeting presence – though humanity’s imprint on the environment can constantly be seen. The ceaseless flow of time is a central theme in the work alongside the presence of history, the present and the future of the city, the diverse ecologies of built environment and nature, migration and homelessness, and the conditions of common space and its occupation.