Gigantic advertisement screens feel offbeat in Helsinki. I just witnessed the giga-screen of Musiikkitalo blasting adds against the gray Kiasma walls. One cyclist passed their confrontation in the rain, leaving the remaining snow glimmering alone in neon colors. Amos Rex mega-screen illuminated the entire empty plaza.
Below is an extract from an interview of Agnes Denes, conducted om the 5th of Oct. 2018 at the artists studio in Manhattan. I transcribed the 48m interview yesterday on the artists demand.
Agnes Denes: My poetry became haikus. Because the language was a restriction, so the haiku was an.. Well, not easier mode of expression, because it had restrictions but I wrote many haikus and then I buried them.
Johannes Heldėn: ..as a part of the Rice bur..
A: I buried all the writings and I tried desperately to remember my haikus because they were beautiful but I kept no copies. I wanted to divest myself of something that I loved, to get something back from soil.
J: That’s very beautiful.
A: I wanted to give it, to get. And there was one haiku I tried to remember.. And I can’t.. But I can tell you what it was. I was sitting in a fog, next to water and the fog descended on top of the water. And a mosquito landed on my arm and the haiku was that, the mosquito knew it’s platform but I lost mine.
J: Oh, that’s beautiful. I love it.
A: Isn’t that gorgeous?
J: It is!
A: And I can’t remember it, the haiku.
J: To be honest, when you are describing it like this and there is also the idea of the haiku but we can’t hear it, I think that makes it even more beautiful.
A: The mosquito knew my skin was its platform but I lost mine, because the fog descended on the water.
J: The haiku is lost, there is a beauty to that too
Eero Yli-Vakkuri: I’m now thinking about the Tree Mountain, there is this strong scent of death, somehow in this work. A feeling of getting lost, somehow. Am I interpreting it correctly, that there is like a sense of.. A sorrow of death?
A: Of what?
E: Of death.
A: What’s the word?
E: Death.
A: Death, like dead death, like as in died?
E: Yes.
A: So how does that come into this?
E: I don’t know it came to mind when you were talking about that haiku. Sort of these forgotten memories.
A: Oh, the giving things up.
E: Putting.. Stuff to the ground..
A: Jeah. Ok. So, ask the question.
E: There is no question, perhaps. It was a short..
A: There is no question but you want an answer?
[Laughter]
J: That’s a good quote. That’s a pretty good quote.
E: That’s my life.