The winners of the Conversations of Our Time competition have been announced
International media art will be displayed on the media wall in EduCity in October–November. The Conversations of Our Time media art ensemble consists of 14 artworks selected through an international student competition. The artworks were judged by Taina Erävaara (KampusART artistic committee/Chair, Head of Fine Arts), Henna-Riikka Halonen (Visual Artist and Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Art) and Hertta Kiiski (Visual Artist).
The jury has selected three winners who will receive a prize of EUR 500 each. The winning artworks reflect globally relevant themes and phenomena. The jury describes the winner pieces as follows:
Johanna Lahtinen, Aro Mielonen & Julia Strandman: Draw a circle to keep the witch in
A timely and seamless collaborative project that combines ancient and contemporary rites and engages interestingly with the notion of glitch as a refusal to adjust with the norm. As a result, the work is visually complete and fresh narrative entanglement of human and non-human agencies that brings forward questions around materiality, human–nature dichotomy and technology.
Joel Danielsson & Louise Öhman: Stone is the Bone of my Mother
A well-constructed and rhythmically precise work that layers different temporalities and material processes. It brings forth the tension between the virtual and physical worlds and that of surfaces and forms. This speculative work is charged with the sense of potentiality but is also continuously underlined with a notion of care and framed with an enriching background story.
Ali Ardalan: This is not a line
The artwork brings together versatile image and text material and deals with complex topical subjects of borders and belongings. It succeeds in combining the political and the poetic in order to shed light on the brutality imposed on asylum seekers. It reminds us of the eternal questions of violence of language and structures and the relationship between words and objects.
Conversations of Our Time includes interesting perspectives and conversational openings
All 14 artworks in the Conversations of Our Time ensemble address in their own way the keywords defined in the competition programme: “access, entanglements, glitch, material sensations”.
In their choices, the jury paid attention to cooperation, persevering work and topicality. The selected artworks introduce various perspectives on media art and its contents, as well as on cultural diversity.
The artworks will be shown on the media wall in EduCity 19 October – 30 November on Tuesdays and Thursdays from around 11 a.m. The duration of the ensemble is about an hour. The works can be viewed from Taidon portaat (stairs), which can be reached from EduCity’s restaurant and the second-floor working café.
As part of Conversations of Our Time, a screening and discussion event open to the public will be held on Tuesday 30 November at 5–7 pm in EduCity.
Read more about the artworks here.
