Vasif Kortun (TR):
It is rare that a viewer watches people looking at their individual and social contexts from perspectives that the same individuals do not normally observe those contexts from. We usually get to see either the artist’s framing of a situation or the communities’ story framed by an artist; we also get to be treated with all sorts of documents.
Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen’s works retort to none of these strategies. They have other ideas about participation and document. As valuable or inspired as it may be the general conviction is that participation in artistic practice does not hold up to the standards of good old object making.
Kalleinen and Kochta-Kalleinen’s works negate this patronizing view. They prove that miracles can happen when communities are engaged with tools for imaginative participation with a bit of hard work, dedicated time, openness to a good conversation and consultation. Their works are very timely in bringing to fore stories made with a dedicated communality and drawing from this fickle thing we call artistic knowledge as well as uninhibited humor and absurdity. They nibble at notions of documentary, as they tend to deal with the “reality” of a situation by allowing it to be reconstructed with a particular detachment.
I selected out of an amazingly sophisticated group of artists of diverse practices Kalleinen and Kochta-Kalleinen for the precise beauty of the ways they take on the present time. Aired out are voices and situations drowned by the noise of media and grand issues. Like all great art, their works helps you imagine possibilities not closures.
Vasif Kortun (TR), Director of Research & Programs of SALT in Istanbul, curator, writer and teacher (2014)