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21/10/2004

Rien - Is That All?

Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead

Veli Gran & Tuovi Hippelainen

Rien - Is That All? is an extensive joint exhibition by Finnish artists Veli Gran and Tuovi Hippelinen. The exhibition presents different life stories and views of the world through images, narrations and memories. Miniature worlds created by the artists, offer viewpoints into collective and individual experiences and of different and alternative ways to perceive reality.

The exhibition includes photography, video and installation and at its centre is Islands, an installation by Veli Gran, in which a model train runs on tracks which circle the exhibition space. Tiny video cameras inside the train record material which is presented in real-time in a building erected in the gallery. A sound loop simultaneously plays stories told by people from Pori, Finland about the most memorable moments of their lives. Islands creates a theatrical world of real-time and pre-produced material; the motion of the wheels of the train can be seen as a metaphor for the action of memory, continually conveying observations into the past and always coming back to where it started from.

Veli Gran, photographer and documentarist, focuses his work predominantly on photographing people who give meaning to their lives through self-made art, including self-taught artists, collectors and creators of miniature worlds. Tuovi Hippelinen, photographer and teacher of photography on the other hand, works mainly in painting, photography and video and creates video installations which distance themselves from narrative cinema, and instead of a plot, feature an event bound by cyclical time, resembling a painting set in motion. Both artists make highly personal art, yet are also capable of a seamless cooperation. In this exhibition, that cooperation comes across as a seamless whole, a journey into life itself.

Visitors to the exhibition are invited to participate in a clay workshop and create their own self-portrait. The finished pieces will be displayed in the gallery to form part of the exhibition. Rien Is That All? is produced by Pori Art Museum, Finland. The exhibition is part of the Visual Community Network.

Notes to Editors

An Artist Presentation and Film Screening An Artist Presentation and Film Screening by Veli Gran, is taking place at BALTIC on Saturday 20 November, from 19.30-21.00. Places are free of charge, but pre-booking is essential.

Rien - Is That All?
By way of an explanation of the origin of the exhibition title Rien - Is That All? art historian Arja Elovirta writes the following text, in the exhibition catalogue. "Although the journey is shared, each one of us experiences it differently, looking at it from our own horizon. On the 14th of July 1789, when the French Revolution was already in full swing, Louis XVI wrote in his diary just one word, rien, nothing: the hunting expedition at Versailles had ended with no game bagged. At the very same moment, the revolution rolling through the streets of Paris was sucking up the King's subjective sovereignty and destroying the structures of his power".
Copies of the exhibition catalogue are available from the BALTIC shop.

BALTIC is a major international centre for contemporary art situated on the south bank of the River Tyne in Gateshead, England. BALTIC presents a constantly changing, dynamic and ambitious programme of complimentary exhibitions and events with a strong emphasis on new commissions. BALTIC has welcomed more than 1.5 million visitors, since opening to the public in July 2002.

Level 3

Press Preview: Friday 22 October (by arrangement)

Artist Presentation and Film Screening: Saturday 20 November

BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art
South Shore Road, Gateshead NE8 3BA

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