Those Who Kept the Light, 2022
installation with 10 HD videos and sculptures
Your scent sweaty child head, damp fever apartment, leftover prawns in the trash, slimy oyster on your belly skin, seaweed moving with wind and waves and your wetness comes with scales and your legs with dark hair and your hands dry and weathered and your dog old and loyal and your boots always little damp and worn and your soap never smells the same on anyone else’s skin.
Those Who Kept the Light is a 10-screen video installation with sculptures and a soundscape. The project is based on ten poetic scripts exploring our dependent relationship with the sea, in a context of queer and feminist maritime narratives. The stories are told through the context of human and other-than-human love stories; the wind or the ocean are seen as entities with consciousness, emotions and a voice. Those Who Kept the Light investigates the importance of vulnerability, desire and memory through myths and open-ended narratives. Within the wider framework of climate emergency and the role of the fragile ecosystems of the ocean, the project reflects on the collective mindset of imagination and longing. Unfolding epic and barren Nordic seascapes, the narrator leads the viewer into spaces and places of solace, empowerment and emotion.
Commissioned by: Kunsthal Rønnebæksholm and co-commissioned by Kulturbyrået Mesén
Produced by: The Finnish Cultural Institute in Denmark, The Finnish-Norwegian Cultural Institute
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Performers: Sall Lam Toro, Klara Lopéz, Neea Kuusenmäki,Malla Tuominen,Katrien van der Velden,Rosaliina Paavilainen,Lisbeth Mangen, Magnus Rostad, Nastja Säde Rönkkö
Text: Nastja Säde Rönkkö
Cinematography: Aake Kivalo
Additional cinematography: Nastja Säde Rönkkö, Iiris kärkkäinen
Edit: Heli Kota
Color: Hannu Käki
Music: Timo Kaukolampi
Additional music: Mikko Maijala
Sound Design and additional Music Arrangement: Janne Masalin
Soundscape in situ: Janne Masalin
Production and camera assistant: Rosaliina Paavilainen
Curator: Aura Seikkula
Supported by: The Nordic Culture Fund, Nordisk Kulturfond, AVEK, The Finnish Cultural Foundation, Taike Arts Promotion Centre Finland, Tönne von Christierson’s Foundation, Ulla and Erik Hoff-Clausens Family foundation, Fritt Ord and Bergesenstiftelsen