16-31 March

Through this exhibition, I welcome you to explore the underwater realm as I perceive it, as I find myself in it. I’m presenting first video clips edited from my underwater archive (which I started in summer 2021), poems written over the last few months (first writing attempts in English, after 11 years break from writing) and first mermaid vocal tryouts.

The exhibition has a character of work-in-progress, opening a window to my relationship with the sea. This relationship is sensual, energetic, material, intellectual. This relationship is a journey I’m on since 2020 when my research on queer- feminist perspective on underwater life started. It had various forms: reading theory, (never ending) learning and teaching sailing, spending days and nights by Baltic and Mediterranean Sea, lakes and rivers, swimming, floating, snorkeling, walking kilometers by the shores, collecting shells, fossils, seaweeds, building abstract installations, sculptures that express my view on the waters, running transfeminist artists reading/discussion group in Barcelona, living and working in Helsinki archipelago.

There’s really no final form nor output that could express this journey. Waters resist any stable forms anyway, so I refuse to force it. I hope you can open your sensitivity and have a glimpse of underwater realm as I and many other sea creatures feel it.

Ioanna Gerakidi, writer based in Amsterdam and Athens wrote recently an unconventional text about my sculptural work. I want to share part of it with you:

‘It all started in the depths of a sea which never had a name, her waters not yet explored, not yet spoiled. Her structures, fluid and untamed, they were hosting nymphs and mermaids and deities, giving birth to creatures that the human eye has never seen before. I don’t know how these species were called either, their transformative nature wouldn’t allow for a concrete name anyway. The species were altering their form every time they wanted, they had no fear of risking their identities. They were becoming one another fearlessly, they were multilayered and kind and generous; they were sharing their fears and agonies, and sometimes you could hear them crying alone as well; but you knew they have chosen their temporal solitude, as they never felt excluded, abandoned or unloved. The presence of these species was not marked in time, their lives had nothing to do with humanity as we know it. How do we know about them? They left us, human beings, a letter, before they leave earth, before they migrate to another planet, where they could transfer their wisdom, their knowledge, movements.’

Bio:
‘To kosie’ is a visual artist born in Poland and based in Helsinki. Its work focuses on queer-feminist perspective on underwater life, exploring concepts of fluidity, balance, ongoing interaction, and transformation. This fluid realm serves as a metaphor for resistance, providing a space of safety and acceptance for self-expression.

‘To kosie’ builds mixed media sculptures and installations through exploration of wide variety of experimental materials. Its video works function as video performances, with the camera actively engaging in the action. Its recent poetry is rooted in research into recent theoretical queer and feminist concepts as well as in its own sensual experiences.

Its works have been exhibited in Kalleria, Oksasenkatu 11, Asematila, Pori Biennale III, VAFT, Festival of Political Photography, Publics, Museum of Impossible Forms, Kuvataideakatemia and abroad: STOGGAF pop-up in Brixton in London, ADN Platform Barcelona, SWAB Barcelona Art Fair, Rietveld Pavilion in Amsterdam, Snehta Residency in Athens and other.
tokosie.tumblr.com tokosie@proton.me