1990 TURNS I

TURNS has been painted on the rock and on the opposite wall. On the latter the writing is reserved. In that way you are invited to play with the meaning of the word. TURNS doesn’t mean just one thing. It could mean something very concrete and bodily. You have to turn your body, so that the eye can catch sight of the writing and the inversed script.

The extent and the intervals of he elements on the sports grounds become visible by the movement. So TURNS could mean transformation in manifold ways.

TURNS – environment in three parts. First an event, then the environment with arrangement and belabouring of elements in landscape and buildings, finally a video installation, which will document and continue the elements. The relationship between the tree parts seems to form a circle. The event The Sea-Dance on July 7^th is repeated or takes place again in the videoistallation. But you cannot just speak about a repetition. When the event is shown n different monitors, which combine different point of view, you will see something more than the person, who thought he was in the centre of the events on July 7^th. The video camera, which will film the event from a helicopter, the Sea-Dance for Salmon-Fishermen, which takes place on the sea and on the lawn in front of the Nordic Arts Centre could seem to be an alien eye, which is able to see everything. Is it this eye presumably in the centre, which perceives the true image?

If you answer in the confirmative you forget about the part in the middle of the environment, the belabouring of buildings and landscape around the sports grounds. This is an arrangement that includes the body and vision of each single individual being a sort of sculpture in space. Some of the elements in this space are pointed out and made visible. Objects and elements are pointed out and made visible. Objects and elements are accentuated and doubled. There are three goals for soccer, what sort of game can you play with them? The tree on the hill looking towards the sea has its form duplicated in another material. Is this an image of the tree or is the tree itself an image? The small gate in the wall towards the sea is underlined. Does it mean that it becomes a frame for a lovely landscape painting? The opening could also be the element, which is absolutely necessary in order to perceive the weight and extent of the rocks and the fragments of fortification. The displacement and repetition of forms introduces a hesitation. This hesitation could mean a change in your way of looking. Reality is not necessarily previous to the image; reality and image into merge into each other and become simultaneous.

An environment is part of and has its origin in the place, where it is situated. Already last fall Kirsten Justesen visited Suomenlinna. The circle emerges as a form, which intimates a theme in TURNS. The circle doesn’t close. As in the relationship between event and videoinstallation you can also look at the extent of the circle and its elements on pictograms in the vaulted gate at the Nordic Arts Centre. At Suomenlinna the circle and the labyrinthine are elementary forms. There is not only one centre. The centre is displaced as you move around labyrinthine passages or semicircular roads. At Suomenlinna you can move around with hesitation and at the same time with full confidence in the multiplicity of the images and visions, which will appear by the next turn.

Jette Lundbo Levy, Sveaborg  July 1990