10.02.-28.02.2022

Paja Galleria

This exhibition makes reference to the histories of crafted utilities and the mood set by interior and exterior furnishings that highlight, protect and suppress both unnatural or natural elements. The sculptures presented seek out the weaving and swaying of utilities, structures, and moments; to find the point where the wobble of mechanisms finds a hesitation – a time and place of imagined crossing paths.

The installation conjures imagery of dressed scaffolding creating a curtain for the exterior of an adaptable structure, protection from the weather and for the workers. These structures are lit by fluorescent task lights from within its covers. They become ‘object-utilities’, both critiquing and lighting, lending hands/arms to support each other’s positions and adaptability to their impermanent placements in fluctuating environments. 

The installation at Paja galleria is set by the stances of rushnips; the task lights for this space. The rush nip is both a precursor to and candlestick substitute. It creates a source of light from gathered rushes peeled to a thin strip, soaked in tallow, and held by a kind of plier mechanism. 

This exhibition is a yearning to find the yellow glow under the chin. A moment laid next to hay bales en route to harvest that most precious resource; this winter’s light.

Maija Fox is a visual artist based in Helsinki. Her sculptural devices are sensitive reflections of the immediate surroundings, like the fluttering and falling of maple seeds – or by the functionality of engineered objects in the modern world – such as spinning chimney cowls. The process of making, materials, and scale of Fox’s works are playful responses carried by time, place, and curiosity in noticing narratives between natural and human-made mechanisms. Fox is currently working towards a group exhibition at Frappant Hamburg, this coming together at Kuva Tila and a group show at EGEU Lisbon.

Emma Hislop is a multi-disciplinary artist based in  Edinburgh, Scotland. Hislop explores ecological storytelling, playing with time/space shift technologies, archaeology and divination. She classifies her work as semi-fiction. She explores interests in material processes and histories, science and science fiction. Her work has been awarded by the Sustainability in Action Group, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Royal Scottish Academy and regularly expands her field of vision through unique residency programmes. She has worked with British Society of Scientific Glassblowers, GENERATOR projects, Central Saint Martins and Creative Carbon Scotland.