- Candidates-
2021
The Ars Fennica Art Award winner, chosen by an international art expert appointed by the panel, will be announced on 10 February 2022.
Award Panel
- Leena Niemistö, chairman
- Leevi Haapala, director, Kiasma
- Kai Kartio, director, Amos Rex
- Kari Vehosalo, artist
Exhibition
An exhibition of works by the nominees will be held at Hämeenlinna Art Museum from 15 October 2021 to 3 April 2022. Members of the public will also have the opportunity to vote for their favourite artist at the Ars Fennica 2021 exhibition.
Artists
Candidates 2021
This year’s ARS FENNICA candidates are:
Eija-Liisa Ahtila
FINLAND
Visual artist and filmmaker Eija-Liisa Ahtila experiments with narration and form in her works that address the gendered, colonial and anthropocentric structures haunting the everyday and its representations. During the last decade she has explored what an ecology of drama could be, that includes also more-than-human actors and their perspectives: how to allow another animal than human, or a tree or the wind, to take the centre stage in cinematic narratives?
Anne Karin Furunes
NORWAY
A repeating theme in Anne-Karin Furunes’ art is that of the female character victim to historic events beyond her control. She uses different archives to search for pictures that move her. These small photographs, originally taken for bureaucratic purposes, are enlarged into paintings often over two metres in height.
Jesper Just
DENMARK
Jesper Just became known some twenty years ago for videos in which tense psychological encounters lead to emotionally loaded scenes. What has happened, or was happening, is not quite clear. No one of the characters is speaking, but there may be a song accompanying the situation or the characters may communicate by singing. Jesper Just’s recent installations explore ideas of agency, performativity, and interpassivity.
Viggo Wallenskold
FINLAND
Painter and author Viggo Wallensköld depicts life’s absurdity through a series of fictional characters. Over the years, his works, which typically feature just one main character, have come together to form a cohesive entity, a universe all of their own, comprising a series of intertwining themes. Wallensköld’s paintings explore the physical diversity of humans and our ability to cope with difference.
Magnus Wallin
SWEDEN
Magnus Wallin’s art constitutes an exploration of the human body. It is not just the relationship between bodies and norms that fascinates Magnus Wallin, but how many permutations of these bodies there are, and how they constitute different modes of understanding.
ARCHIVES