Video works exhibition «Who do you think you are?»

Part of the Akhmatova Museums ongoing series of important international events and exhibitions, «Who do you think you are?» is the result of an exceptional collaboration between the museum and guest curator Chris Gordon opening on the 6th of October.

«In selecting the artwork for the show, I became fascinated by the similar way the three artists have of looking at personality. That led me to wonder what would happen if I treated it as a solo show of a single artist with a split personality — a sort of exploration of multiple-personality disorder in three dimensions».

The three artists participating in the show — Pia Euro, Tanja Koponen and Elena Nasanen — are all well-established and respected in Finland. The art they will present is sophisticated, impressive work of consequence that has been exhibited internationally.

One of them, Elena Nasanen, has already been seen in St. Petersburg as part of the National Centre of Contemporary Art’s hugely successful Electric Visions festival that took place at Dom Kino a few years ago and with which Gordon was also involved.

The theme of a divided psyche is clearly visible in Pia Euros piece Tuula, which confronts the viewer with a split-screen image of a woman’s face. The effect is both mesmerising and disturbing leaving the viewer caught somewhere between fascination and repulsion.
A dissection of personality and the gaze, the piece offers a powerful vision of dislocation and the complexities that accumulate with the multiplication of viewpoints.

Tanja Koponen presents her own version of the night-time of the soul in a complex installation that includes her sister as one of the subjects. Less directly confrontational than Euro, the heavy-metal soundtrack and lost-highway setting add an element of menace that immerses viewers in a late-night world.

Elena Nasanen presents a Hitchcockian rendering of the ’other’ that suggests a more intimate relationship between the artist and viewer. Offering the spectator an elaborate exercise in point-of-view, her psychological detective story is also an exploration into the very nature of watching.