Jonna Kina
After Life

09.04. - 02.05.2021

After Life is Jonna Kina’s debut appearance at Helsinki Contemporary. The new works in the exhibition combine layers of art history with an investigation of the border zone between life and death using the means of film, vocal music and archaeology. This multi-sensory experience consists of a sound work and a two-part video work. Stories told by ancient objects and confessional fragments lead us into perennial questions about humanity, via listening and being heard.

A common element in all the exhibition works is an artifact (500 BCE) from the ancient Faliscan culture, which was stolen from a tomb and is now in the collections of the archaeological museum in Mazzano Romano, Italy. The object and its story inspired Kina, who visited the Museum in 2017. The ceramic jar had been cemented in place, presumably as an ornament element in a private home, before ending up in the possession of the Museo Archeologico Virtuale di Narce – MAVNA. Red Impasto Jar documents the burial object and its altered exterior in a detailed choreography. “The object seemed to tell a multi-dimensional story that involved the afterlife, the aura of an art object, scientific archiving,” Kina says. The other part of the work, After Life, is made up of short, meditative scenes depicting the ruins of the Faliscan Cavone di Monte Li Santi necropolis and the surrounding nature. The burial chambers had been looted before archaeologists found them in 2015.

In the sound work Confession Piece for Voice the themes of mortality, shame, lust, pleasure and remorse are interpreted by an a cappella, soprano rendition of a song. This was co-composed for the work together with Lauri Supponen, and performed by Aida Wessman. The libretto consists of excerpts and fragments from the autobiographical work Confessions (397–398) by St. Augustine (bishop, theologian and philosopher 354–430). Taken together, the themes of humanity addressed by Augustine expand to become timeless. Kina says: “The book’s essential questions about how we have lived, how we live, and how we should live are also relevant to our current situation, for example, in relation to the use of natural resources and the loss of biodiversity. Thinking in this way, the work provides a reflectivity on this human-centered era.” The sound work can be heard in the exhibition space on request.

After Life followed by Red Impasto Jar, a single-channel version of the video work, will get its world premiere in the experimental Forum Expanded programme at the 71st Berlinale film festival in June 2021. It has been made in collaboration with the MAVNA Museum. The exhibition and production of the works have been supported by AVEK, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Greta and William Lehtinen Foundation, Oskar Öflund Stiftelse, and Taike.
 

Jonna Kina (b. 1984) graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, and the School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Aalto University. Kina’s works have been shown widely in international exhibitions and festivals, e.g. Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Berlinale Forum Expanded Cinema Programme in Berlin, Kumu Art Museum in Tallinn, Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen, EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Galleria delle Carrozze di Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence, Musée de l'Élysée in Lausanne, and International Film Festival Rotterdam. Nordisk Panorama gave Kina’s Arr. for a Scene the Best Nordic Short Film Award in 2017 and, in that same year, she was shortlisted for the VISIO Young Talent Acquisition Prize in Florence.


Welcome to meet the artist in the midst of her exhibition at Helsinki Contemporary on Wednesday, April 28 at 2–5.30 pm!