The turquoise color of the metal sheets in Pori made me think of the ocean, and those old oasis of healthcare, spas. I made a shower room for iron and copper into the cube. Iron gathers an amazing orange rust and copper becomes greenish with different shades of turquoise. The work functions like a fountain, but it looks like a profuse stream of shower.
It is terrible to watch water just running down the drain. We should always close the tap, we are living in times when the prospect of running out of tap water is present.
I was offered a chance to place my work into an extraordinary glass cube in the city center. The cube is rather large to be an advertisement space and too small to be a room. The streets of the city center are asphalted, made for humans and cars to use. Of course there are communities of different organisms, insects and mycelium, but there is also different materials mined from the nature and lives of these materials. The glass cube where I will build my work, has changed during the years that have passed. Its metallic parts have got a beautiful green patina. In fact quite new constructions from about 60’s and 70’s often seem older than they actually are because of pretty patina.
I will make a shower room for iron and copper into the cube. I will build a fake floor to hide the equipment needed. The work functions like a fountain, but it looks like a profuse stream of shower. It is terrible to watch water just running down the drain. We should always close the tap, we are living in times when the prospect of running out of tap water is present.
The turquoise color of the metal sheets in Pori made me think of the ocean, and those old oasis of healthcare, spas. Major part of the water resources on the globe is salty seawater. Seawaves eating away the cliffs cause erosion and the seawater even gets most of its salt from the ground. Salty water on the other hand corrodes and erodes different materials. This spa is actually not for the first view good for the materials laying under it, salt water causes strong reaction on iron and copper, and this noticeable even for human beings after some time. Iron gathers an amazing orange rust and copper becomes greenish with different shades of turquoise.
I often work with seemingly lifeless things and materials. Those kind of things that don’t have a face to smile back at people. In fact the biggest motivation for me to work with these materials, is to take distance from the complexity of the human specie. I chose a shower, that takes it shape after the shower for human beings, but the materials bathing under this shower react differently than humans. Because the work recycles the water, the water is likely to get rusty during the week, it may vaporize and evaporate during a hot summer day. Iron and copper bathe inside this water running aquarium and patina is the most visible reaction, a substitute of a smile, that we can sense and observe.
