Past Residents
Past Resident2017: Alfred Kordelin Foundation
Pekka & Teija Isorättyä
Artist duo Pekka & Teija Isorättyä work together with a variety of media, producing mainly kinetic and electromechanical sculptures. The Isorättyä’s artwork reflects the problematic and close relationship between man and machine. They use found materials, sometimes inspired by the people they meet, such as medical equipment, solar panels, tuna or pig skin, to bring attention to the environment around us. In their work, they investigate how to convey human values and concepts through the machines.
Pekka & Teija Isorättyä (both born 1980, Finland) met in kindergarten. They studied art together at Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture and completed their MA in 2010. Pekka & Teija Isorättyä started their career in Mexico City with an exhibition at Museo Ex Teresa Arte Actual in 2008. They have exhibited in other spaces in Mexico including Anahuacalli Museum, Polyforum Cultural Siqueiros and Museo de la Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público. In 2010, the Isorättyä’s founded the art space Invalid Robot Factory in Berlin. From 2013-2015, they travelled to Japan, Mexico, and the Baltic region in a sailboat.
Events & Exhibitions
Spring Open Studios 2017
April 21–April 22, 2017
Pekka & Teija Isorättyä, Meermaid, 2015, Kinetic sculpture with tuna skin.
Pekka & Teija Isorättyä, Lillyjellynight, 2016, Kinetic installation with infusion tubes.
Pekka & Teija Isorättyä, Invalid Robot C3 ( bärbel), 2010, Kinetic sculpture with mixed media, 64 × 23 × 43 in. (162.56 × 58.42 × 109.22 cm).
Pekka & Teija Isorättyä, Oil Age, 2014, Kinetic sculpture with bio oil.
Pekka & Teija Isorättyä, Solar Sea Turtle, 2014, Kinetic sculpture with a solar panel and drift wood.
Bita Razavi
Bita Razavi’s practice is centered around observations and reflections on variety of everyday situations and is highly influenced by where she is based at the time. She examines the inner workings of social systems in relation with the political structures and national events of historic proportions in various countries. While socio-political observation is at the core of her practice, the dialectic between bringing what is personal to the public sphere, and the impossibility of total exposure because of law or social pressure, creates a secretive feel in some of her pieces. In her recent works she reacts to, and explores, the agency of the objects and the systems as they act upon her, and as she documents and records them.
Bita Razavi (born Tehran, 1983) lives and works between Helsinki and Metsakivi, Estonia. She graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Music from Tehran Art University and holds a Masters in Fine Art from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki. She has exhibited her work at Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, 1st Trondheim Biennale, Finland, Finnish Museum of Photography, XV Biennale de la Méditerranée, Thessaloniki, Helsinki Photography Biennale, Design Museum, Helsinki, Videobrasil, SESC Pompeia, Cité international des Arts, Paris, Fotografisk Center, Copenhagen, Göteborg International Biennal for Contemporary Art, and National Art Museum of Ukraine.
Bita Razavi, How to Do Things with Words (A Legal Performance), 2011, Video installation.
Bita Razavi, Bita's Dowry, 2015, Series of photographs with audio captions.
Bita Razavi, Pictures from Our Future, Pictures from Our Past, 2016, Series of photographs.
Bita Razavi, Pictures from Our Future, Pictures from Our Past, 2016, Series of photographs.
Past Resident2017: Danish Arts Foundation
Rasmus Røhling
Rasmus Røhling thinks of his artistic production as a self-passage. His work revolves around the topics of casualness, the Facehugger, iconoclasm, sophistication, and the impotence of ostentation. A reoccurring theme in Røhling’s sculptures and videos is the notion of art as the epistemologically unnameable and how this self-perception as stealth potentially affects artistic agency and methodology. The works often seem overtly concerned with enunciating their own ontology, oscillating between idiosyncrasy and strategy.
Rasmus Røhling is an artist and writer based in Copenhagen. He holds an MFA from California Institute of the Arts (2010) and a BFA from Jutland Art Academy, DK (2007). Røhling has shown work in exhibitions including Macho Man, Tell It To My Heart, Artists Space, New York; Travis, mertro pcs, Los Angeles; A.U.T.O.E.N.U.C.L.E.A.T.I.O.N., Sismógrafo, Porto; New Rocks Upon the Beach, SixtyEight, Copenhagen; Negating Depressing, SixtyEight Art Institute, Copenhagen; Rage and Patience, Human Resources, Los Angeles; Elephants, YEARS, Copenhagen; and Tell It To My Heart, Collected by Julie Ault, Museum of Contemporary Art, Basel.
Rasmus Røhling, Still from Pablo The Asshole, 2015, Video, 17 min.
Rasmus Røhling, Mowgli, 2013, Lightjet print, 20 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.64 cm).
Rasmus Røhling, The Hobby, 2014, Mixed media, Dimensions variable.
Rasmus Røhling, S.U.P.E.R.P.A.C.I.F.I.C.A.T.I.O.N., 2015, Video, 3 min.
