Animate

The Turku Anikists: Tommi Juutilainen, Niina Suominen and Taru Varpumaa, Turku Art Museum, Darkroom, 8 Apr – 29 May 2011.

The Animate exhibition series in the Turku Art Museum continues with the presentation of latest animations by the Turku Anikists. Works featured in the Darkroom are Juxtaposition (2011, ca. 2 min.) by Tommi Juutilainen, I Call Myself Sane (2010, 4:20 min.) by Niina Suominen, and Edith (2010, 5:39 min.) by Taru Varpumaa. Works by all three artists have been screened and won awards at film festivals around the world.  

The animation Juxtaposition by Tommi Juutilainen (b. 1972) has its premiere in the Darkroom. Like nearly all animations, the work is the result of many years’ work. With this piece the process began with a sound made for another animation. At the time, the artist was unhappy with the result and he pronounced the sound useless. Investigating the relationship between sound and vision, however, Juutilainen began developing visuals for the discarded sound.

Niina Suominen (b. 1973) has created visuals for I Call Myself Sane, a musical poem by Teemu Hirvilammi and Ari Taskinen (Asfalttia ja ruohoa, Sammakko 2001). Suominen’s work is a collage-like animation, in which film itself is a visible material. Abstract images alternate with sensitive drawings, and some of the effects are the result of random treatment of the film. The poetic music and the rhythm of Suominen’s intelligent visual vocabulary blend into a virtuoso achievement. I Call Myself Sane were screened at the Tampere Film Festival in March. The latter won recently the first prize at the Vidéoformes festival in Clermont-Ferrand, France.

Taru Varpumaa (b. 1975) is by training both a visual artist and animation film director. Edith is her first solo animation after graduation. In her hand-drawn animation Taru Varpumaa tells a touching story of a demented woman in institutional care. In Edith’s mind the past and the present blend into a reality of its own. Music accompanies the loving, warm memories, which are often interrupted by the anguished mood of war.

The Turku Anikists association was established in 2005 by three animation students, Niina Suominen and Tommi Juutilainen among them, when they graduated from the Arts Academy of the Turku University of Applied Sciences. The purpose was to secure opportunities to pursue their profession. Today the association has 12 members, all animation professionals and graduates of the Arts Academy. The association is a platform whose purpose is to enable its members to make non-commercial animations

 Turku Art Museum's Darkroom 8.4.-29.5.2011

Tickets: 8 / 5 €, free admission for visitors under 16 years 

Open: Tue-Fri 11am-7pm, Sat-Sun 11am-5pm

The Animate exhibition series explores the role of animation as an independent contemporary art form and as part of the visual arts. Animate is being produced in cooperation with the Turku Art Museum, the Pori Art Museum and the Animation Degree Programme at the Arts Academy at Turku University of Applied Sciences.