Paja galleria
Kalasataman seripaja, Vanha talvitie 9, Helsinki
2.12.–29.12.2022
Mon–Fri 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
and Saturday, Dec 17th 4–6 p.m.

Vernissage on Friday, Dec 2nd 5–7 p.m. DJ Torvilinna (Koti6) will play flea market gems from his massive vinyl archive. Welcome!

Kalasatama’s industrial past shown as an image printed from dust

Paja gallery of Kalasataman seripaja screen printing workshop is located beside the construction site of a new residential block, in the former Sörnäinen industrial area. In the first decade of the 21st century the area was still at edge of the populated city but is now rapidly becoming part of the center of Kalasatama. In Paja gallery Tatu Tuominen’s exhibition A Fine Layer of Street Dust is opening on December 2nd. Tuominen brings out the industrial history of the shores of Vanhankaupuginlahti.

The source images of Tuominen’s work is a series of photos taken by photographer Harri Ahola from a helicopter in 1979. They depict a chimney sweeper sitting astride on the rim of the tall chimney of the nearby Kyläsaari waste incineration plant and looking directly into the camera. The photo series is part of the Helsinki City Museum’s extensive online photo collection. The chimney was demolished in 1988, and now Kyläsaari is stuck between two growing residential areas.

The two pictures selected for the exhibition are of the same object, but shot with tenths of a second in between them. They form a two-frame moving image in the space. One of the images is reflected on the wall from a 70s overhead projector, on which it is engraved with a laser. The spotlight picks out the second picture in the exhibition space. It is a serigraphy printed with sand and dust. This grit has been collected from Kyläsaarenkatu near the chimney stub of the old waste incineration plant. The material still contains, in some form, particles of burned waste of the past. The unidentified chimney sweeper and the lost chimney still live on in the work.

The exhibition is at its best after 3:30 p.m., after dusk. Welcome!

Tatu Tuominen (b. 1975) lives and works in Helsinki. He graduated with a master’s degree in visual arts from the Academy of Fine Arts in 2006 and now works there as a Lecturer in Printmaking. Tuominen has held 15 solo exhibitions and more than 50 group exhibitions in twelve different countries. In recent years, Tuominen has realized several public commissioned works in Helsinki and Lahti.