“The silent influencer does not like self-promotion. They touch upon the topics from the 1980s that have been silenced until today. Why are they quiet? Should they shout? When I was young, I was the one who shouted at various artistic events and at the university. Everyone deserves to be heard. Time will tell if we were right. It’s just been a moment since I was a child. The war had just ended. Now there is war again. I see my life as a reflection in the mirror, full of joys, achievements, and experiences. Every day I learn something new. What I thought as a child, what I think today. I return to the flow of my thoughts. Once again, I am a little girl, 70 years ago, full of fresh ideas in the 1960s, and later a teacher of future generations and a mother. What is the Silent Influencer supposed to express? Joy, tolerance, faith in the better, nature that always triumphs over human cruelty. A positive image of the world worth believing in.”
Kellomäki’s visual practice is performative in its essence. She has developed a slow art method where her works are first built as community events, later they grow in the slow nature’s pace and at the end they cease to exist. Nature and fiber are her protagonists, and their relationship is in the spotlight of a few months’ lasting show. She wishes to raise awareness not only about how art has an ability to grow slowly in front of our eyes, but also to focus on the idea of a performance that is not limited to a single happening that would last for a short time.
Photo: Maša Pirc / BIEN
Kaarina Kellomäki is a Finnish textile and environmental artist who combines fiber, textile and land art. Her installations only exist for the duration of the exhibition for which they are created. From massive environmental installations to living textile fibers in textile-like structures, Kellomäki’s work is always strongly connected to the place where they are exhibited. Alongside a career as a teacher and designer in the field of textiles, she has developed artistic work presented today in Finnish, European and American museums and galleries.
