31.10. — 23.11.2025, Hippolyte Studio

I live under the weight that a poor childhood leaves on a person. Growing up, money and education do not take away the feeling of shame and inferiority – as if there were a flaw in the self. The uncertainty that gnaws at existence makes one turn away from the here and now; inward, towards oneself, and into dreams. The worry of losing even the little one has achieved in life. Paying even small amounts feels like touching an open wound. There are images and stories and observations of the lives of people who seemingly manage better. I understand that money, material, and cultural wealth are not conditions for a good life. Yet, the fine milieus of home and work exude security, stability, the possibility of perspective, and these classes appeal to me with a blinding intensity. A deep, constant, and burning pursuit of all that is better, and but admiring it from afar. The inability to grasp the here and now, as attention is always elsewhere; in dreams and in what I am not, or do not have. A quiet paralysis. The hope of liberation.

Goldmund is a single-channel video work by Jarno Parkkima, whose shots are visual traces and remnants of the artist’s attempt to understand the mental impact of childhood poverty and the multifaceted experience of disadvantage on adulthood. The images in the work quietly unfold the space and atmosphere of this journey. It is an effort to break free from the weight and shadow of the past, and asks how one might surrender to a more self-directed future. The work, on view at Hippolyte Studio, is the first in a series of three pieces exploring this theme.

Jarno Parkkima (b. 1984, Vantaa) is a visual artist based in Helsinki, working with moving image and photography. His work addresses questions of the private experience of everyday existence and the environment as a lived space. Through sustained practice, Parkkima produces visual material from fleeting and ephemeral views, both of built and natural spaces. His works intertwine the dreams and practices of living, tangible distance and intimacy, human agency and incapacity, as well as experiences of exclusion and belonging. Parkkima earned a Master of Fine Arts from the Department of Time and Space-based Art at the Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki in 2021, and a Bachelor of Arts from the Department of Photography at the School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Aalto University in 2015. He has held solo exhibitions, participated in group exhibitions, and presented his works at film festivals in Finland and abroad.

Parkkima’s work has been supported by the Kone Foundation. The exhibition seating has been provided with the support of Nikari.