The theme of Minneslucka (Galleria Huuto, Helsinki, 2017) is loss of memory – or rather a hole in memory, or even an opening – that arises from the transfer of the experience transferring the wandering in Mappa mundi's exhibition space to another place. This transfer does not occur without loss. The video animation, projected on the textured surface of the wall in the gallery space, highlights the memory loss both at the level of content and as a concrete event in a space, where the projector's light is reflected and dramatized throughout the space in alternating moments of presence and absence, light and darkness. There are no longer any signs of the living, breathing warmth of Mappa mundi. What is left in memory, is a rough black and white mark that is seen in blue twilight. Projection fills the cramped and darkened gallery space with light. The light of the projection becomes a thematic element in itself, when the roughness of the projection surface violates the experience of virtuality. This distancing is reminiscent of how brush strokes live on the material surface of a painting. With Minneslucka, the connection between form, surface and reflection, the dead and the living, physical and mental light, is beginning to become the central theme of Strandberg.
The idea of the viewer's experience of what it is like to be inside an installation becomes even more important and serves as a starting point for making art. I want the viewer to be a part of the work, and the relationship between them to be ambivalent. – Magnus Strandberg |
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