a spectator views part of the installation by Janne Nabb and Maria Teeri
Äkkigalleria interview with Maria Teeri and Janne Nabb on Sunday April 7th,
2013.
Welcome to the 6th Äkkigalleria residency in Jyväskylä!
You work in a lot with space and different kinds of space, what kind of
space is Jyväskylä?
JN: Straight streets and curved lakeside roads, quite
dusty this time of year, and there is a whole lot less snow here than what we
expected (there is more in Helsinki).
MT: Many people have stopped
to look in the gallery window, to see what is happing in the space, so
Jyväskyläläinens seem to be interested in changes along the street.
Äkki: You will be spending the next five days creating a new body of
work in a space you just discovered yesterday. Is this an intimidating way to
work?
JN: It is!
MT: Yesterday was the day of
enthusiasm, and today it’s a bit more distressing.
JN: Last summer we did a
similar project at the Mänttä Contemporary Art Exhibition, so this way of
working is somewhat familiar.
MT: At Mänttä the material
was already there and abundant, but here we have to look for all our
material. So that also brings in a
lot new, interesting elements.
Äkki: What do you think of the space? How do you anticipate it will
influence the work you make here?
MT: The space is quite
dominant.
JN: When we heard that the
space was really small, we thought it would be easy to fill, but when we
started to create in the space we realized that the size of the space doesn’t
really matter, and so small and big spaces each demand a specific kind of
approach, and there is pretty much always a lot of work to be done.
MT: The space is quite slick,
and there aren’t any easy, prehensile surfaces. It doesn’t have any distinct
attributes such as you can find in industrial halls and old concrete storage
spaces.
JN: The windows had gold
lettering tape, the walls were champagne, the floor is this kind of grey, so it
offers an interesting world of its own.
MT: The placement is also
interesting. We are situated between a pizzeria and a deputy services office,
it’s one block away from the downtown pedestrian zone and yet it is still kind
of detached from the centre.
JN: Like the outskirts of the
city; the red light district (laugh)… no, not really.
Äkki: How do you usually begin a project? Is what you are doing here
different from how you usually work?
MT: It usually begins with
something we find..
JN: ..it might be some
physical material or a thought.
MT: In this case the space
was more our starting point.
MT: normally the duration of
our process is a bit more stretched out, sometimes it kind of goes on and on
and on changing into something else, progressing as it goes along.
JN: Here we are maybe diluted
because we are in what already is, and we are forced to work faster. But it’s
like working with a new palette of colours.
Äkki: You have established yourselves together as a unit. First of all,
everyone always wants to know who does what. How do you work out the rules and
regulations of the game?
JN: It is quite case
specific. Sometimes it starts with a suggestion, so one of us shares an idea
and then it starts from there. We can say things out load and someone always
answers.
MT: Of course the answer
isn’t always nice to hear: it isn’t the answer we want or expected to hear.
Maybe about ten percent of the ideas are developed into projects.
JN: We don’t really have any
set rules to the game yet, but that is good because this way the process is
constantly in motion and changing continuously.
MT: If one of us gives up on
a project, the other one can bring in new perspectives, which help the project
move forward.
Äkki: Our residency couple from last year, Camille and Paul, talked a
lot about how their communal drawings, and their whole process for that matter
was a discussion, an on going process of communication with the other and the
larger community. Do you communicate together through your work? Is discussion
the focus of your work?
MT: Yes it probably is.
JN: For me, material, along
with ideas, participate in discussion.
JN: We also try to use
material and thoughts to communicate with a third party; who is the spectator.
MT: But part of the
discussion isn’t open to the public. The discussion is really important and their
needs to be some kind of interaction it is a central and essential part of our
work together.
Äkki: Could you produce work alone? Could you have a show just as Janne
Nabb or just as Maria Teeri? (Will you?)
JN: We met in 2004, and we
began working together in 2008, so we did work for four years independently.
MT: But even right from the
start, we always critiqued and commented on what the other was doing.
JN: We were making the same
kind of work, we used the same colour, the same themes, and interests. And we
started to think if it might be better to just work together.
MT: But now it isn’t really
important who made what, and it’s not our way of working anymore, although we
still do make our own things too.
Äkki: What and who are your influences? (People, artists, books,
music..) And how are they (or are they) portrayed through your work?
MT: We quote other artists a
lot; continuously, newly found and inspirational sources are unlimited.
JN: But if we have to say a
name, the magic vanishes.
MT: Gerda Steiner and Jörg Lenzlinger from ARS 2006 were a great inspiration
for us in the beginning because they work together.
JN: Vesa-Pekka Rannikko is
another interesting creator, whose work has influenced us along the way.
JN: There are element of influence
from a surprising amount of artists, whose work we still hold on to for years
and years.
MT: Last summer at Mänttä we
discovered a great many artists and artwork. And the exhibition’s idea was
wonderful in that respect because it really was inspirational in creating
something new. And then there was dOKUMENTA 13 of course…
Äkki: The last phrase in your artist statement is: Working with found material often leads to
unconventionalities and barbaric misreading. Can you expand on that statement? Could you give an example of a “barbaric
misreading”?
JN: This was something one of
our art teachers’ interpretations of our workspace and our way of working.
MT: If you use re-cycled
materials, then multiple interpretations and “misunderstanding” are part of the
process.
JN: Well fundamentally, we are
painters, and painters don’t always have to justify each and every brushstroke
they make. But because we work with re-cycled material, and all material has
its own history, the viewer might make their own interpretations based on that
history. But we are really using the material like paint.
MT: Maybe this is where the
idea of barbaric misreading came from.
Äkki: I
noticed that branches and sticks are a returning element in your work. Is this
by accident or do they represent something more? What role do they play in your
work?
JN: You are right, they do. I think they often
function in the role of something that holds things up, used as a support for
hanging things…
MT: As a rack/stand.
JN: The form of a branch is nice to hold on to when,
for example, we are walking through Jyväskylä from our apartment to the
gallery. It is a material counterpart…
MT: ... to all the plastic we use.
JN: To balance the fengshui. But branches are easy to pick up and take along with you.
MT: I also pick them up along the way.
JN: Maybe it is a natural way of connecting with our
primitive ancestry.
Äkki: A
Finnish language professor just wrote an article in the Helsinki Sanomat
newspaper about how we learn language the wrong way; we stress language classes
at the wrong age (too late) we are only taught “important” languages such as
English, and that instead, there should be more stress on multiple and divers
languages at a younger age and in a more social and interactive context. What
is your relationship to language?
JN: My father is a Swedish-Finn, but we never spoke
Swedish at home. However, I got a lot of information through concrete, hands-on
learning: fixing, customising bicycles and other things. And I learned English through doing.
MT: I have always been more of
a literary person. Mathematics and things in systematic order are natural for
me. This might have come from my family’s background in classical music. I am
not really an “innovator” I like to create things systematically. So, these are
different kinds of languages, which offer different ways of observing the world.
Äkki: What is your earliest memory of colour?
JN: Oh no. It probably would
be the turquoise coloured fountain in yard of my childhood home. I dove in and
the colour changed as the water turn red. I don’t remember that change of
colour, but I remember the turquoise.
MT: I have a lot of colour
memories. Maybe one colour memory would be of when I was made to lie in bed for
a nap, but I didn’t want to. I remember pressing down on my eyelids and rubbing
them; all the colours that appeared in a different and interesting colour-world.
Äkki: And what about your earliest memory of art?
MT: For me it is probably
related to music, because my parents were both musicians. But I probably first
discovered visual art through illustrations in books.
JN: My father built a lot of
things; he made me a Jeep that was powered with a lawn-mower motor, and then there
was a raft that we sailed over the river. These represented a feeling of
freedom and an experience of something that I now want to do with my art.
Something all encompassing.
Äkki: And now some one word/short answers:
Äkki: Colour
MT: Spectrum
JN: Tool
Äkki: Process
MT: Periphery
JN: Procedure
Äkki: Explanation
JN: Around…
MT: …the corner
Äkki: Object
MT: Partner
JN: Quasi-object
Äkki: Material
MT: Paint
JN: Tangible
Äkki: Time
JN: Slowed
MT: Cyclic
Äkki: Word
MT: Game
JN: Re-discovery
Äkki: Sound
JN: Metallic
MT: Black bird
Thank you Janne & Maria!
