ROSA-MARIA NUUTINEN
3.-25.11.2021
Rosa-Maria Nuutinen (b. Hämeenlinna, Finland) is a London based artist with a predominantly drawing based practise, concerned by the ideas of our current society’s impact on people and on the environment.
Nuutinen considers our society’s connection and disconnection towards ourselves, our bodies, other people and the alternative places to be and exist in response to those. Her work explores the notion of absence and the act of trying to preserve something, resulting in both fictional and dystopian narratives. These existential experiences come across as gooey biotechnological insides and savouring a sauna moment with your old wrinkly grandmother.
Concepts such as cyborg bodies and biotechnology are present within the work. Nuutinen is interested by the idea that humans, in order to maintain our excessive life style, have to rely heavily on technology and keep creating complex technological mechanisms. In the hopes of continuing to live and to conserve our environment.
Nuutinen is currently undergoing a residency at Oulu-AiR, where she is deepening her project ‘In You I see Myself’. In her project Nuutinen is exploring anime + manga fan cultures through virtual characters and worlds, investigating the relationship the fans have towards their beloved books, tv-shows and characters.
Selected exhibitions and projects include In You I See Myself, residency at Oulu-AiR, Oulu, Finland (2021), I’m So Sorry, solo show at Ränni-Galleria, Oulu, Finland (2021), States of Existence, group show at Socially Engaged Art Salon, Brighton (2020), The Big Four, duo show with Rosa-Maria Nuutinen at Harlesden High Street, London (2019), Terms and Conditions May Apply, group show at Annka Kultys Gallery, London (2018)
NOTES
-exploring anime + manga fan culture though virtual characters and worlds
-holo-live
-me as the holo-live character
-Elfen Lied – Lucie – violence against humanity
> The name Lucie was given to the first diclonius after the first human-ape Lucy
>evolving into superior beings
-alternative reality …… in maid cafés customers and employees avoid talking about home, school, work etc and even windows’ views are blocked in a way in order to create an alternative space, where the ‘reality’ doesn’t exist. They are creating their own reality right there and now. Maid cafes are an escape from the reality
> the liminal space – the fine line where the fiction can be perceived as reality
-connected to a place, to each other and to the moment
‘Ringo is both a real and a fictional character made possible by limiting the exposure of the person.’
Reading
II-PROJECT = mapping home
I’ve been thinking a lot of childhood and nostalgia, familiar places and how as a child the world is seen more magical than it sometimes seems to be. During my residency I started experimenting with my all time favourite PC-game Heroes Might and Magic III, which was introduced to me as a child here in Oulu. I wanted to create a replica of my family home’s surroundings and re-create my childhood home with all its magical treats.
Further thoughts where to develope the map:
-a game style map on my website > animating certain destinations, which you can click on
-different stories in the ‘destinations’: old man narrating the place’s story, drawings & photographs, sound clip? Different ways of describing the place?
I – PROJECT = IN YOU I SEE MYSELF
I was introduced to virtual youtubers and their communities by my brother, who’s an active follower of Holo-live community. Holo-live is a group of players, who record themselves playing various games, which they later on upload online. What makes them interesting is that the original gamers create these virtual personas of themselves and nobody really knows who the real gamers are. They become their invented characters and the fans love the characters, not the actual gamers playing the game. I started following one particular youtuber, Shirakami Fubuki, and became fascinated by this invented being, who is somebody’s alter-ego? Maybe? I wanted to draw her being stuck in a dimension, where she exists but is not part of our ‘real’ 3D-world but exists somewhere else.
III-PROJECT = LOOKING FOR HIKARI-CHAN
Thanks to Kulttuurivoimala I was able to rent a desent camera and a gimbal to record my long planned walk of a Hikikomori, who goes looking for their beloved friend and a companion called Hikari-chan. I’ll update more about this project to my own website but it was really import for me to rent the equipment with affordable price. So a big thank you to Kulttuurivoimala for trusting me with their equipments and advicing me on my project!
IV – DRAWING DIARY
In Oulu I’ve also kept a very irregular drawing diary to record my time in here. It’s been nice to start my day with doodling if I didn’t know what to in my studio.
Oulu-AiR 