In 2017, Outset Estonia supported the production of Laura Põld's installation 'Much Later We Go For A Swim' for the international group exhibition Intra-Structures – Monster of the Seven Lakes, curated by Jussi Koitela at Treignac Projet in France. The exhibition was part of the Entangling Matter and Meaning project, organised by Sam Basu, Jaana Laakkonen and Jussi Koitela, which entailed artist residencies, workshops, commissioned artistic installations and interventions, and an exhibition.
'Much Later We Go For A Swim' by Laura Põld was based on the later life and writings of Tove Jansson, the Finnish novelist, painter, illustrator and the author of the Moomin books. The site-specific installation was divided between three separate locations, together forming an abstract space – a room similar to the one on the island of Klovharu, in which Tove Jansson spent most of her last twenty years with her partner Tuulikki Pietilä, painting and writing books for adults with autobiographical content. The first part of the work, in a white gallery space, concentrated on the process of painting and consisted of large canvases and delicate details, such as embroidery, handmade costumes and found objects. The second location was an industrial space, in which a metal structure imitated the forms of a landscape. Staging or recreating landscapes through material objects has been a recurrent theme in Põld's artistic practice. This part of the installation was also the setting of a performance which Laura Põld conducted together with Australian installation artist Rachel Schenberg. The third part of the installation was in the open air, mixing the natural environment of a moss-covered cliff with man-made and found objects which imitate natural forms. The installation 'Much Later We Go For A Swim' was based on a cognitive approach to an artist's life, to the surrounding landscape and to painting. Laura Põld drew upon the Moomin world, geography and human-non-human materiality of the isolated Klovharu island, where Tove Jansson spent her summers, and the spatial conditions of the Treignac Projet, to create an installation of multiple material and narrative layers.
Laura Põld (b. 1984) lives and works in Tallinn, Estonia, and Vienna, Austria. She received her MA degree from the Department of Painting at the University of Tartu and studied ceramics at the Estonian Academy of Arts. She has shown her work in Austria, Estonia, Germany, Denmark, Japan and elsewhere. She is known for her medium sensitive site-specific installations which combine painting, ceramics, video, photography, textile and other media. Her recent exhibitions include So Small It Could Be Mine at Ateliers Höherweg e. V. in Düsseldorf, Germany (2017); Structured Frustrations at CC.art space in Isfahan, Iran (2017); Serving Makes Place at Gallery Maebashi Works in Gunma, Japan (2016); Hundreds of Illusions Charted as Land at Tartu Art Museum in Estonia (2016) and Road to Silver Mine at Gallery Chemin Du Bonheur in Hokuto, Japan (2015).
ON VIEW: 22nd July - 3rd September 2017.
