Type-A-ness.

3 lokakuun, 2017 | Henna Timanttimetsä

Travelling man 2001, Grand Canyon

Landscape 2001

Kuva | 29 syyskuun, 201710 maaliskuun, 2018 | Henna Timanttimetsä

Drawing pedophiles

26 syyskuun, 20179 toukokuun, 2022 | Henna Timanttimetsä

Is there something that has to be explained? Yes, my point of view probably. My work is not a defence, it is exploring what there is, what is hidden, what is shown and why. There are differences around the globe how for example criminals are portrayed in media, the accused and convicted ones, which has been an interest of mine and involves culture in general, which issue resonates with portraiture and the visual culture we receive and look at. Am I taking a stand and what kind or am I doing research? Yes. I am trying to understand how we measure, comprehend human value and make judgment, point a finger and what do we make of it. What does artist represent and mean when she dives into the very problematic of our morals and the evil men and women do? What do we mean with inhumane as we think humane is something absolutely good? Why inhumane is below us and something else than us? To me it is not outside of us, we just like to think it is.

What is the absolute evil we loath, how is it seen or not seen, is what interests me, the ugly and beautiful we define. We see it in those others, how about in ourselves? We have a very strict filter or denial of what we are. What do we make of all that seen imagery and how do we choose our stand can be a no-brainer. It is to condemn and stay as far as possible from evil, lock it away in isolation, still it has to be understood, faced and talked about as it is not far from anyone ever. How the bad and evil get caricatures and stereotypes which repeat in our minds is how we make the difference and make rejection. We see something and we think immediately something of the seen. We analyse our relationship to it. An absolutely evil person is someone who hurts those who cannot defend themselves and keeps on hurting knowing that there is little or no struggle against. Sound familiar? The pedophile issue is a constant one as is the issue of evil, abuse, creating the evil, learning about it and our ways of dealing with it. How am I good and that other person bad and why. Issue of evil happening against children is painful and real. Those involved in abuse are the lowest of the low as those who have more power take advantage of those who have less power whose hurt brings pleasure to someone. Sexual abuse is different from any other kind of abuse. We have our ways of seeing abuse that is either very punishing or looking the other way. Sexual abuse is a corrupted idea of sex, of power and relationship and destructive to anyone who is hurt. There is a victim whose hurt is the shame and pain of what has happened. When child is seen as a pleasure toy for an adult, child is violated and humiliated in the most cruel way. What is the happening there and what is the enormous violation there is who is a proper sex partner. To know what kind of desires we can have and realise, what is sex for and why it dominates our behaviour, why are we sexual to the extent of hurt, when does and should sex become an issue for children and what kind of issue is it for adults, are questions for all to go through. It is always an issue for children and we live in a sexist world where being sexual means something, but what does it mean. Children think of sex which does not mean they are ready for having sex and they misunderstand and imagine, as do adults. What is the violation there when a girl starts her sex life out of her own initiative at the age of 11? Can she have an initiative of her own? Sex is violence is probably the best way to understand what happens in sexual act. Something that is supposed to be good is hurtful. Sex is not a mere act of pleasure. From the beginning when children are targets they are targeted as are all. It is the very assumption of what humans are basically about, are seen through and want.

One has to be careful how one approaches the topic of children. There are numerous scandals in fine art where children have been shown openly as sexual beings. They are sexual when they are naked. Taking roles of adults happens to many children in real life all the time. Children taking care of minors when they are minors themselves, being made into killing machines and factory workers who have small fingers and are cheap labor, children who are sold into prostitution have not chosen to be prostitutes. Yes we are all horrified. The most horrifying thing is sexual abuse, naked body of a child and looking at it, when it is on display. What we must do is to know who is the abuser. Amount of hurt and to whom is a big issue, for example within catholic church hypocrisy comes along which is not news anywhere. When revealed pious people who were supposed to protect, guide and teach feel the shame. Pedophilia is the worst kind of crime and we want to protect children. I do hope so.

How protecting happens, do we reject the whole issue or face it? Responsibilities of adults do seem to be lost for adults themselves far too often. What does judging the artist tell?

pencil on paper, 2015

Sign

20 syyskuun, 201725 tammikuun, 2018 | Henna Timanttimetsä

Någon torsk

17 syyskuun, 20173 maaliskuun, 2018 | Henna Timanttimetsä

Art

13 syyskuun, 20173 maaliskuun, 2018 | Henna Timanttimetsä

Begging is not a profession.

11 syyskuun, 201725 tammikuun, 2018 | Henna Timanttimetsä

Beggars are an everyday sight in bigger cities. Feelings towards beggars are negative which I can understand as there is no pride left when you beg. You are on the street and are very vulnerable. Poverty is seen a fault of your own, not a virtue. It is a stench and a shame to not have money. Opinions range from disgust to pity. As an artist I can relate to this. A poor artist is a bad artist, which thought has as much sense as the art scene in general. But still I am rich. I look rich because I have my teeth left and my clothes are new and I have a home. I can relate as I do not come from money and I make art at shoestring budget. There is creativity in being poor and I can afford to think this way. Having no money makes you innovative. I do not consider wealth a measure of man and I do think we should start consuming less. To learn to think having less a virtue is what I’m hoping to see. Biggest wealth is what a nation can do to its citizens and help them think that there are options for them to try out, that they are not destined to be beggars or what someone else tells them to be. Our destiny is not set by other people and where we come from.

Merciful and allowing kindness, non judgmental attitudes towards beggars resonate with our overflowing concern over the third world countries. Their state is what we feel guilty for, it is our doing in part, but how long should this guilt go on? How responsible are Finns for example for what happens in the world now? Our consuming of goods and lifestyle is a constant threat which includes facts about slavery and child labor, how much do we contribute to and how well can we be aware of exploitation? To be able to get ahead in life is not luxury it is a human right, to evolve on your own. Not be the child to be abused but taken care of, our responsibility is grave and dark. Of course we must be concerned, but what kind of help is the best kind? Do we support corruption and oppressive traditions when we give monetary help? For those who are oppressed and poor begging must be allowed, but it cannot be a without an end kind of method of earning. How much mercy there is and what does it mean when you give money? Are you doing something good for that other person or for yourself, you save yourself and the other perhaps? In Finland there were not many if at all beggars on the streets ten years ago, living without a permanent home in the cold on the mercy of others is a short life to which in Scandinavia some party will intervene. To intervene to destructive ways of living is one aspect of welfare state. Abandonment can happen by families but not by state. The Roma people are tightly dependent on their family structures and hierarchy there which cannot be questioned as harmful. Beggars beg for reasons we can guess what goes behind there is a matter of knowing and suspicious, a well grounded question. Begging is especially cruel for children for which I am most concerned about. The most important duty of any nation is to provide a basic education for its children and get them out from the streets. This child labor, abuse and a human rights violation is very acute all over the world. Despite all the natural and other riches nations may have child poverty is on the rise and they are the ones who suffer most. I do not have any empathy for people who put their kids on the streets to work may the work be prostitution, begging, playing music, washing car windows etc. Child labor is one of our major problems still even though there is clear evidence that educating all children is the benefit of all society. To give education is the safest bet and an investment for the future. People who have been working on the street since childhood probably will continue to do so in adulthood.

Poverty is a though one to escape and to change destitute life is unbearably hard but not impossible. To think it is impossible is to think fight is only for survival and that options are for the rich. In Finland punks beg money for beer in the summer and I can laugh about it. The Roma people come here to beg throughout the year which gets very cold and is not a healthy way to make a living. When families with children occupy the streets at the centre of the city, the busy corners reflect ways of life and how distant people’s lives can be from each other as distant as understanding of life and its purpose are. One wonders is this really how the Roma want to live, shouldn’t their kids be at school, and there comes someone telling me they have no option. So I conclude they are refugees. Why do they not see themselves as refugees? To criticise their way of living is for them cruel and unjust because they escape from oppression, this a repetition and the story, but it is vital for their survival, is always the answer, the same unchangeable. What else could they do and it is easy for me to say what I think. You beg money from me I can have an opinion. They do not think and see other options for themselves and their kids as they are a different class as the Roma of Finland seem to think of themselves as well, a race, a tribe. They see it difficult to live as the majority of people do and mutual respect is scarce. The best help sometimes is the understanding of facts and rules, admit that the world changes around, but you do not. What are you going to do about it?

It’s true to my mind to give money for them is supporting oppression Roma themselves are guilty of, a culture that forces its members to live in a certain way. Handout is giving ground for begging. Begging is about serious destitution, a culture where humans live without tomorrow and as it is allowed to happen is as such difficult to approve of. People are free to beg and continue to beg but not change their predicament in any way, there is something wrong with that and I can say it. The Roma clearly do not think or do not find any other way to make a living. Destitution shrinks one’s thinking and views on oneself. Among the Roma there is a thought that their lifestyle is sacred and they involve religion to begging which there is no business others to intervene or judge, people must help those in desperate need if they are true Christians. Forcing is not a Christian thing to do as is not stealing, lying and being incapable of helping oneself. To force someone to beg is slavery. Those who do not contribute and show compassion are cold-hearted and cruel, the Roma say. Education, evolution and change demand a certain degree of cruelty and pain. Those who stubbornly want to stay the same blame other people for their situation. Such denial is common anywhere. Feminists are blamed for making men feel inadequate and destroying families. If you are so useless what is the use of you? What people should learn is to help themselves not depend on other people to make them happy and give money. That is the way to go. This idea of making a living doing what they have always been doing is very telling of how stuck people are in their old ways of living without education. People who are oppressed in their own countries can apply for asylum. Surely options seem few under oppression, but they are few partly because there is not a seed of hope or thought for anything else. Thinking destiny is set because of your sex, origin, colour, religion etc. is yesterday’s doctrine that must not be obeyed today by anyone.

Denmark already has a very strict law against begging which is seen as fascist by many. Beggars who go to jail may have a chance for change. To my mind tradition of begging which continues from generation to generation is fascist. It is forcing a whole of community under one truth and one kind of way of living where women and children must obey and do what they are told. The Roma people are oppressed and rejected and begging is not helping their case, nor is living in vans or stealing from shops. As shocked as I was when they entered Finland a couple of years ago, the shock may be due to me having enjoyed the welfare state and possibilities it has offered. To remind you state providing its citizens is the best way for poor people to get ahead in life, such as myself, I have never had money to call myself rich. I do not get used to the idea there are people who base their whole existence being beggars. Roma people who usually beg in Finland ground the whole of their identity via this act of asking for daily income from people who pass them by. Communities that stay the same are doomed. Resistance is the only way. It has been the way for the poor to change the world and themselves.

Artist poses in front of her art.

Kuva | 5 syyskuun, 201711 maaliskuun, 2018 | Henna Timanttimetsä

Pathology out in the open

4 syyskuun, 201726 tammikuun, 2018 | Henna Timanttimetsä

Appearance being so important to us, our minds revolve around how we look and what is thought of us, what is seen as us and how to that sight is reacted. Our appearance is self-expression which we must be very aware of and think what does our expression mean to the viewer. Image of self is to know how much is it a show and what is it meant to do. What can be done with that self we are, the body that is you, how do you feel about you, how do you use your whole self can have interesting conflict there with the inner self, culture we are born into and the rest of us what obviously affect all and those who observe. They all who are watching have a thing to say. It is one kind of totalitarianism to which we volunteer or not. To be able to choose is a luxury, to have freedom of expression. How one thinks of oneself, what is the factual you to be found, visible and how does one evolve, what is the pressure there and who is in command. What is the direction to take up and follow as we are advised to find the best us, the best you, what is that and when do we know ourselves? When nobody accepts you as you are, there is a problem and it is you. It is not the environment, it is what the environment thinks that counts, so change yourself or rebel. You will not find yourself by playing by the rules and expectations that are handed over to you, the conflict is constant and decision is yours up to a point. Somewhere you do not get to choose. This I believe has resulted a society that is afraid of conflict, afraid to disagree and afraid of not always looking one’s best. The best being agreeable and clean. That you there is silently sobbing or anonymously raging but feeling strongly nevertheless. Conflict is instant as our problems are nowadays huge, to solve the arguments we have that are unsolvable because no one is willing to back down.

How to deal with racism, sexism, fascism, fanaticism is to condemn and demonstrate against, but to really live by principles that are not sexist, fascist, racist and fanatic and are against those things may be more difficult than we realise as we do not recognise these things necessarily in our behaviour unless we have analysed and thought through what it is one is doing and thinking and if we do not experience the negative poisonous things ourselves. It is an every day concern how to present oneself, what is the right way, that as how the self is presented and read, what is the actual you, how does it come to be and what can and must be controlled. What is the pretence there, which part of you is to hide or change, what cannot be shown or changed but must be dealt with. What is here to deal with is what to take seriously and what not, what can be seen what is happening. To be hopeful, presentable and accepted, have a positive mental attitude and think about growth, growing. To grow is to add, to be more. How can we be more than what we are is to learn and understand what there is to learn. How to be more when anything extra you thought was growth is unachievable or taken away, extra being the wealth, possessions or the weight of you, your output, your purpose. Weight being fat, trauma, the garbage you wear and eat, say, do and think, the negative thinking, wrong way of living and working etc. The right kind of load to get rid off, we have lots of tutorials online. Often we ourselves do not accept our bodies as we are too close to it, live with it, in it, it with us. We observe ourselves constantly, but still the body is unfamiliar, hostile and strange. It is unfamiliar as an organism which changes constantly. We do not control it, but we do something to it, manipulate it, so it is not natural. Our bodies are under attack by germs, pollution, other people, expectations, food and drink and we are bombarded by experts who give us daily advise how to mould that piece of physique that is you to be something which is maybe the other and more suitable. So how to know you seems a mission impossible, again, but it is one main goal. The impossible there is the unbearable, the uncontrollable, which is especially our feelings. How to understand where feelings come from and what do they mean to our existence is essential and too much disregarded and underestimated still. Emotions are inferior even though they rule. To look like one is not falling apart but in control, one’s life is in order and in fashion. Holding oneself together is to keep composure and keep calm. There is style to it and there are rules. A one piece moving ahead having a life worth living.

For a lot of people life goes around how to look, presenting that as self and how to keep up with that appearance which is presented to us as better and new. Are we owners of self at all or manufactured? To preserve oneself as fresh and as new as possible, presentable, agreeable, then there are people who don’t give in to the culture of appearance, not giving it that much thought, because it is not the most acute problem in a world of problems or blending in is the safest place to be. If sticking out causes problems for you it is a 100% sticking out is unlikely to happen in full, for some hiding is impossible, then you are vulnerable. It is a problem of our world, the magnitude and endless trouble, policing neurotically, hurting and pointing out the difference which is seen a flaw, abnormal and to be cured. How does that other one look like, wrong or right, is he hostile or weaker and where does he or she stand? What is that look about, what is it telling you and why do you read appearances are questions we should think more closely because we think with our eyes not necessarily analytically, definitely not free of judgment. Why bulling for example based on appearance continues to be the most often and frequent issue for many, bullying manifesting as power as it is the easiest way to put someone down making remarks on appearance and what kind of neuroticism this event in human behaviour creates. It is what we see of a person first, the look of his or hers. What is there to do than look, to look better and not be pushed aside, look like something else, you changes when you change your wardrobe and what is good in doing so is the feel relieved. What is the best, what is the wanted, why it is not you and how to feel about that strange fact that we look like something, different is the personal but unwanted. To comprehend meaning of variety, difference, understand difficulty of having an out of norm quality, seeing ’obscurity’ and accept seems to be more difficult than expected to for people, to handle and grow not to pay attention, for grown-ups and for children it is almost equally hard. We grow into this culture where pointing out and looking at appearance is important.

Our appearance is the book that is read. It is about knowing. Something admirable must be in you and the personal come out if you dare. What it does for you, this open personal, in your life depends on what you show, how far can we go in showing or revealing ourselves, what is the limit there and what is obscenity. What do you get or don’t get because of what you look like and what you show. Usually it is about sex. Sex has a lot to do with how we look at people, how we look for people and what we look at, are interested in. Attractiveness is the thing, a thrill, to attract people is to entertain. Interesting is the original and the personal still do not obey rules of your own necessarily but the aesthetics of the culture, rules of somebody else, which of course must be the case for us to live in some kind of order. They say people find confidence via looks, they find work and partnership, fulfilment and belonging. People who have found their confidence after having lost the fat on them from the right places truly have felt miserable. There are right places on people and then there are wrong places. It is a competition, an obsession, a way to look at bodies and faces. I have been wondering how superficial is this need, an urge to fit in, that we are seekers for safety is to wear a mask. Visible and too visible can both be too much in finding a comfortable existence, but comfortable does not mean having a quest for growth and change. This search for a look is to make an impression and be accepted and it is about our freedom that is granted for us modern individuals, to be ourselves, find ourselves and what to do with the random stuff that disturbs is to get rid off it. That what is ugly cannot show. Conflicted by finding security, symmetry and risking it. How lost are we with our values that we think are what we are and are good. Do we look like what we are on the inside, in denial, inside out as we seem to think as confessional is the new authentic. The inside we like to hide but connect with those others who feel the same. What is private nowadays anyway. When people comment other people’s appearances out loud they are also getting naked by taking position of the oppressor. That is the moment when people reveal themselves without realising it fully, I think. They think they are powerful in this moment of judgment, that is the trap. The first judgment made on someone is immediate and it is about appearance. We make it obviously naturally and from superior place of entitlement. We measure the one coming up, value of that person. Those who look weird are thought to be weird as people. For men looking scrubby is allowed in totally different way than for women. For sexes looks mean different things. To notice the arrogance, violence and cruelty there is makes the world a violent place very near.