25.1. – 2.3.2025

Eeva-Riitta Eerola’s and Jenni Toikka’s exhibition consists of the film work W Is for Waves and the paintings that appear in it.

W Is for Waves examines the artistic process, polyphony – or collective mind – and the intertwining of different art forms by taking as a starting point sisters, author Virginia Woolf and painter Vanessa Bell. The film was shot at Charleston, Vanessa Bell’s country house in East Sussex, and at Kalervo Kallio’s Artist Home in Helsinki. The text is adapted from Virginia Woolf’s novel The Waves (1931), partly modifying it.

While pondering the relationship between cinema and painting, Henry Bacon (2005, 177) says that many painterly films are “liminal films where narrative and non-narrative elements interact to pursue the type of freedom painters have to manipulate images.” W Is for Waves is precisely this type of “liminal film” [ – – ] On the other hand, the work also puts Woolf’s novel into new frames: the passage of time and the span of human life, the relationships and development of people from childhood to old age, are not in the forefront, but space, materiality and observations are.

Tytti Rantanen; Vibrant Spaces, Interweaving Surfaces, Eeva-Riitta Eerola and Jenni Toikka: W Is for Waves (2024) (read the whole essay)

Eeva-Riitta Eerola and Jenni Toikka are Helsinki-based visual artists. They share an interest in exploring the ways we read images and modifying their meaning, as well as pursuing perceptive and refined expression. Along with their own work, Eerola and Toikka have worked as an artist duo since 2016. W Is for Waves is their fourth collaboration.

www.eevariittaeerola.com

www.jennitoikka.com

With:

Performers Hanna Ahti & Samuli Niittymäki

Cinematography Ville Piippo

Sound design Kasperi Laine

Camera assistant Daniel Angarita

Grip Karo Malmivaara

Lights Harri Ahvenainen

Graphic design Ellaveera Björk

Animation Armando Tranquille

Colour grading Sami Sänpäkkilä

Costume design Sofia Järnefelt

Catering Tuomas Alatalo

Exhibition lights Kristian Palmu

Thank you:

Charleston Trust

Marko Vuokola, Petteri Nisunen, Tommi Grönlund & Mika Taanila

Elli Salo

Teppo Lakaniemi

Vyner Articles & Terhi Pölkki

Artek 2nd Cycle

Tytti Rantanen & Tommi Kakko

The exhibition is supported by Kone Foundation, Arts Promotion Centre Finland and AVEK.