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Indepth Arts News:
"Shelter: Kaija Kiuru's Installations"
2002-09-20 until 2002-11-10
Rovaniemi Art Museum
Rovaniemi, ,
FI Finland
Through times women have decorated, built homes and created the spirit of
home. Still eighty pec cents of worlds refugees are women and girls without
home. Tent as their only shelter. This woke Kaija Kiuru to think the meaning
of becoming homeless by necessity or by your own free will and on the other
hand freedom to move and feel home in any place. The artist moves because of
the nature of her work and always builds a home in a new exhibition place,
the art work.
Kammio (Chamber 2002) is build from hand knitted lace and is
extremely feminine and private shelter. In many cultures the value of women
is measured by their skills in handcraft and only after girl has learnt
these skills she enters in the world of cultural meanings. After thousands
of hours of work in Kammio can be seen and sensed the whole quantity of
womens everyday but also concealed world: pains from growing up, love,
happiness of motherhood, rows, violence, shame, escape, abandoning and empty
arms of an old woman. Even though fragile and light as a breath this womans
breast shape shelter can be used as a shelter for journey.
The starting point for Majakka Lighthouse (2002) is the form
which refers to home and stopping but also waiting and longing. The
lighthouse shows light and gives shelter. The work is beautiful as ornament.
The light from inside flows through the names of ships that has been cut out
on the walls like the lived life would filter through walls. The memory and
memories are crossing with illustrated suspenses. They give meaning and
sense for the life. It is a symbolic space which has a relationship to the
history and world of experiences of community and individual.
The meaning of space is physical including smell, touch and
voices. The shelters of Kaija Kiuru are empty and silent mental spaces which
bring longing and nostalgia. The shelters only refer to and that is why they
are without cultural meanings. The shelters recycled materials as the army
leftover blankets and old lace table cloths as well as artists handwork by
connecting the parts together talk about life being lived. Open and
transparent space with many dimensions and its remoteness creates closeness.
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