Skull, Toothbrush and Space Rain | Joonas Jokiranta

Opening Friday, November 7, 6-9pm
Performance at 7pm
Saturdays & Sundays 1-5pm
through November 30

My key childhood experience stems from a moment when I felt strongly that I was not human. That feeling has remained with me ever since, and I have never forgotten it. In my artistic work, I search for humanity everywhere. I try to draw and describe it. I try to bring it out when I interact with an audience. I look for it not only in people and the objects they use, but also in nature and other animal species—conscious beings who, like us, make choices and share many of our emotions and impulses.

In the end, I don’t even know if I believe in humanity overall. Cultural humanity is characterized by endless evil and injustice. Almost every culture also contains an inherent element of violence. In our current reality, it is difficult to discern any clear universal morality or ethical code. The greatest gift of the cultural primate is humor—a trait that might outlive our species. I wish it could travel through time like a wavelength—perhaps it already does.

Humanity is characterized by transience. People try to leave their mark on the world. They engage in a performance that is only partly under their control. Most human actions are dictated and colored by society and the randomness of the surrounding world. Some of the traces people leave are more lasting than others. People themselves are also transient. Plastic, metal, cultural myths, great lies and the endless cycle of nature endure longer.

Joonas Jokiranta (b. 1980 Köyliö, Finland) is a Helsinki-based visual artist who holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts. He has also studied in the MFA program at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Art as an exchange student. Jokiranta has been active in contemporary art for over two decades, holding solo and collaborative exhibitions, giving performances and participating in various events and site-specific art projects across Europe and beyond. He has taken part in film festivals, composed and performed music and designed clothing. He also writes prose poems and short stories. Joonas Jokiranta creates visual poetry, physical essays and absurd yet truthful statements that explore the past, the present, dystopias and forgotten utopias. Both politically and non-politically, he intertextualizes everything. Jokiranta considers his work traces of performance and stains of existence that, like messages in bottles, he releases out to sea. Using video, sound, paint, objects, various materials and his own body, he invites audiences to join a spiritual yet superficial journey through the decadence of post-industrial society.