Aulis and Heikki are partners in art and in everyday life, living together since 2004. A Sculpture on the Theme of Relationships is a collaboration between Aulis and Heikki in an artistic process, resulting in an installation and public event inside their home. This was the first public artwork for Heikki.
A room was reserved for an installation in which the relationship of Aulis and Heikki was presented using materials collected from the couple’s home: images, sound and video recordings, and interior furnishings. The event was open to the public eight times between March and April 2010, in Helsinki.
Visitors participated by spending a moment with Aulis and Heikki, conversing and drinking tea. Visitors were active participants in dialogue, both with hosts and each other.
Comments by the authors, March 2010:
The work is our way to observe nearby surroundings and each other. The work combines visual art and real life. Home, as a scene, gives the background for making art together. Using the home’s interior and materials inside is partly how we comprehend our reality, traditions, and attachments to each other. We have brought up real and fictive filters of authenticity; they mediate human operations.Visitors to our home may participate in the conversation by
spending a moment with us. This process will continue after the event.
Catwhiskers collected from our home. We noticed our two cats were sometimes dropping their whiskers. We thought whiskers are gifts donated by the adorable cats. The collecting lasted several years and finally white whiskers were attached to velvet cloth ja set in a box.
Heikki: Art is my hobby, as an artist I am pure amateur. I would say that I am both sensitive and stubborn, not an easy combination for a partnership. This sculpture, on the theme of relationships, is a collage of what we consider a combination of our lives. It is a synthesis of what each of us thinks of the other, of the time before we meat and of the present. The work was not created without conflict. The result is what we are as an element in partnership and in separation. It has taught me to value my joy through the content of my partner. Therefore, this work is a story about how two different kinds of people get through a shared journey. These are matters common to all of us. Materials, however, are private. They are pieces of life, or self evident parts of a puzzle, out of which the home is made of.
Aulis: The experience has risen by having been near, by touching, by listening, through all senses. It is comprehension taught by life.
This is the view to the room. By the doorway is a picture of bahtroom with an audio (toothbrushing,running water, humming). Materials collected from home are placed in the boxes on the shelves.
Heikki made this portrait of Aulis. It includes underwear, the skull of a pet dog, a sign “shoplifting is a crime”, vegetables and a photo of Aulis as a 7 year old boy with calfs.
Thesis about A Sculpture on the Theme of Relationships (in Finnish) MA Degree Program in School of Art & Design Aalto University
This was a sticker on the door. “The apartment for homelife. Helsinki Rescue center.”