Falling Rising Falling Rising Falling Rising, Katariina's landing I, 2013


Site-specific multi-media installation: Video projections, sound equipment, DVD players, MDF, wood, colored window filters, drawings, Xerox photocopies, photographs, inkjet prints, plexiglass, earrings, necklace, branches, iron, rusted wire, drapes, fabric.
Music credits: Folia (part 1) by Andy Moor & Yannis Kyriakides; Unsounds, 2009





KIVEAF, Kotka International Video and Electronic Arts Festival, Kotka, Finland. Special thanks to: Pasi Granqvist, Hanna Elina Hämäläinen, Oliver Döring & Galleria Usikuuva, Kotka

Falling Rising Falling Rising Falling Rising, Katariina's Landing I builds upon the themes already present in Hot Freaks (2012). It investigates the way new worlds, cities, and Utopias are visualized – specifically in the spiritual realm. By treating the site of the Hot Freaks exhibition as a temple, the design of the installation Falling Rising Falling Rising Falling Rising, Katariina's landing I echoes a ceremonial place in a landscape whereby oval shapes and a surf board function as ‘vehicles’ for the transition of a mental state. Shot in Hong Kong, China, America and Europe, as well as using new footage filmed on the coast of Finland (near Kotka), the work combines video, drawings and sculptural elements such as branches, swords and rusted iron objects. These varied elements comprise a sprawling installation in which surfers on the Dutch coast are superimposed onto a pyramid of sand found on a Chinese construction site, while images of Hollywood stars and a self portrait of the artist as a ‘Maria goddess’ linger like contemporary pharaohs. The other video projections juxtapose continuous flows of cars shot on the American highway, a broken surfboard washed ashore the Finnish coast, and children playing near the water. Small details can be found in the carefully placed objects and photographs. For example, Gartz’s sketches of oval shapes, a photograph from circa 1940 of a school class of children in Kotka and jewellery.