Rosie Wallpaper 01 is a sculpture installation including a hand-bound grid of silky ribbon, and a repeating element made of hand-forged steel, tiffany-glass, cast-aluminum and porcelain. The work deals with identity, an experience of exoticization, the feeling of generalization and simplification; to be on display and under pressure at the same time.

The work examines these questions by looking at the materialization of the Chinoiserie in the wallpaper industry: How visual culture of the East began to be utilized in the wider industry in Western countries, whereby the taken forms and references become a reduced version of the origin. 

The installation plays with Chinoiserie style aesthetics, based upon European imitation of Asian aesthetics that was (and is) applied in design and arts since the 18th century. Chinoiserie, which comes from the French word “Chinese”, does not make a separation between what is Chinese, Japanese, or Indian, but rather generalizes its content under a presumably all-encompassing categorization, “Asian.”

Rosie Wallpaper 01 was exhibited as part of Mänttä Art Fair XXVI exhibition in 2022, and at the exhibition “Nuoret” at Kunsthalle Helsinki in 2023.

Article: XXVI Mäntän Kuvataideviikot / EDIT

M.Y Chinoiserie is a sculpture installation consisting of a series of ceramic sculptures, steel fixtures, pearls and silky ribbon. The artwork deals with experiences of exoticization through playing with historical contexts, the social hierarchies associated with them, and their continued influence on present-day cultures. It aims to bring together material artifacts and traditional techniques in order to speak on the role of everyday objects, perceptions of values and aesthetical agents in racialized, gendered and commonly accepted narratives.

The work refers to the porcelain cabinets often found all over Europe in Baroque and Rococo palaces. The cabinets were collections of Japanese and Chinese porcelain that represented the wealth and power of their owners. Instead of porcelain dishes, the installation presents sculptures resembling ceramic vases and sex toys, with Baroque pearls and on-glaze decal details. Each ceramic element is decorated with a tongue-like shape cut in half that refers to the invalidation of speech.

M.Y. Chinoiserie was exhibited as part of the exhibition Kuvan Kevät, the annual MFA Degree Show of the Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki in 2021, and at the exhibition “Abundance” at F15 Gallery Norway in 2023. 

Article: On “The feeling of being on display and under the pressure” / NO NIIN 

“The exhibition Midsummer Rose is centered around a juhannusruusu rosebush (Rosa pimpinellifolia) whose cream-white flowers appear commonly around midsummer in Finland. Greenhouse lights installed in the gallery recreate the day-night rhythm of the midsummer period and shine light through the window onto the winter street. This setting allows us to travel back to the summer of 2020 on a small and safe scale, protected like a rose inside a dome. At the end of the exhibition, when the last petal falls, the spell will be broken. Midsummer Rose is exercise, meditation, protest, and exodus.

For this occasion, Lukas Malte Hoffman and Susan Kooi have invited a group of artists and arts workers to present their work. Man Yau will show a new ceramic work Fairfarren that will, as if by magic, let the rosebush thrive and prosper. Composer Malibu has put together an exclusive ambience mix for the exhibition, which can be heard from outside the gallery and online here. The booklet accompanying the exhibition features Feminist Culture House’s contribution, a cocktail recipe that was conceptualised for those foraging and making infusions during midsummer 2020. Susan Ploetz’s work Skinship: Touching Intelligence is a LARP in which participants play alien, sensing creatures exploring their surroundings, objects and beings in a strange new land. ” [an excerpt from the press release, January 2021.]

Some words about the work Fairfarren:

The name Fairfarren, that comes directly from the story of Alice and the wonderland, means Farewell (or “good journeying” /”fare far then”). The word is said by the character called Mad Hatter. The origin of the Mad Hatter name comes from the illness called Erethism, or the so called “mad hatter syndrome”: Apparently the hat makers aka craftsmen who were making hats back in the days, went crazy simply because they were using very poisonous mercury in the hat making process. So some say that in the Alice story, the mad hatter is a reference to this illness, that the magical world that the mad hatter is talking throughout the story is only in his head – his world is somewhere between magic and madness. And “Fairfarren” is the last word he whispers to Alice, just before vanishing – yet it’s the first time Alice truly understands the Mad hatter’s odd language.

Inside my Fairfarren piece, there’s a short phrase saying “Let’s have a Dream which isn’t under control”, another reference to madness. It’s as a spell that refers to a time we have lost and that we can’t regain (or will we…) This sentence is from Alan Watt’s speech( or poem idk what to call it). The poem itself has been used in many songs or yoga /zen/zodiac sign lifestyle blogs and it’s about dreaming so far, that eventually you will dream yourself to the moment where you are now. It’s tacky yet a pretty and romantic view.

Lastly, some obvious references are donkkarihattu (because nostalgia, beautiful losers, youth) and the idea of a magician lifting something unexpected from the hat – such as midsummer rose.

Midsummer Rose was exhibited at Outo Olo, in January 2021.

For more information: www.outo.space/midsummer-rose/

Come Little birdies… is part of a group exhibition called BIRD FEEDERS, curated and organised by Sakari Tervo. Commissioned artworks were installed and documented during his Pro Artibus Residency in Tammisaari forest, and the final exhibition was published online at Ofluxo.

View the online exhibition here. 

In the beginning of the process I started to sculpt “something” out of wood with my chainsaw in the forest, without really knowing what it would become. Learning the nature of the new material seemed liberating. As I worked in an isolated environment and without a clear plan, it gave me the opportunity to focus entirely on the creating and constructing in its entirety, but also forced me to deal with the relationship with my own artistic identity. Sculpting became a method to produce something that I can hardly describe in words, and after a while, all of this absurdity started to make sense – at least in my head. I started to dream about Delfu’s world, I imagined her swimming in the sea, surrounded by glossy and colorful surfaces, and in order to make it actually happen, I needed to work on each sculpture to look like there’s no human touch. So all the countless hours spent on those sculptures needed to be hidden so that Delfu and her world would become independent.

The exhibition Delfu is about an illusion of the rational world and the paradox of the artistic work. In the exhibition text, written by Lauri Alaviitala, referred to Albert Camus’ essay dealing the Myth of Sisyphus (Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus [Le Mythe de Sisyphe, 1942], English translation Justin O’Brien, 1955 ). In Camus’ essay, he concludes that “One must imagine Sisyphus happy”, and in Lauri’s text the work of Sisyphus is compared to the artistic work. “A perfect sculpture does not show the hours worked, the versions created, the learning of the nature of the material, the experiments that have been rejected – the fallen boulders. Being sharp-eyed can be torturous, but only continuing one’s work will make one’s victory complete. Every time Sisyphus follows his boulder down into the plain, he becomes more powerful than the boulder.”

The paradox comes when the reality steps in, and I once again realise the absurdity of my own work. One could say that Sisyphus’ fate is everyone’s fate: the workman of today works every day of his life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd.

The exhibition Delfu was exhibited at Gallery Huuto, Jätkä 1. in August 2017.

This installation explores the purity of shape and form through the surface: Planet HER-BB is a picture-perfect installation that feels like plastic. It gives a glimpse into the planet’s vegetation. The exaggerated smoothness of the plants and flora are bulbous and colourful, practically perfect in their shine. I strived to remove every trace that could reveal the process behind the piece. What is essential is the surface, repetition and a rootless state of being that depicts the problematics of productivity.

Planet HER-BB installation has been exhibited in group exhibitions “Käännekohta” at Gallery Sculptor and FemF (Feminist Forum) exhibition in 2017, and at the exhibition “A Passing Permanence” at Space for Free Arts in Helsinki, 2018.