Oh Tears, liquid installation

Kuopio Museum's tower, 13 January -14 February 2002

Apple's Tears, 2002. Glass, apple extract.

Rowan's Tears, 2002. Glass, rowan extract.

 Long Cry and Gift, 2002. Glass, berry extracts, aspen wood.
In cooperation with Lasisirkus, Peter Tavaststjerna

My installation OH TEARS is a continuation to my former liquid artworks that have been marked by a concern on nature's peril. Personal adversities had turned my view at the little human being, exclusion, distress and cry. My father died of brain stroke, my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and my daughter with Asperger's.

In our culture it is not allowed to expose one's weakness and fragility, and not to cry at least in public. Through my artwork I am doing it anyway, since crying dissolves stress and cleanses the organism. Crying together strengthens emotional ties and consolidates the community. According to studies women cry four times more than men. Crying is regulated partly by the same hormones as milk production.

In crying like in art there are many healing features. Although my artwork is therapy and pursuit to integrity, there is also illness and anguish in it. Next to bright tears, lumps of blood, messy snot and slime are trickling. Crying is a statement.

Glass as a material represents fragility and vulnerability to me, its transparency perishability. The liquids of the drops I have extracted from gifts of nature that I have gathered: apples, juniper berries, rowans and bird cherries. Nature and nature's colours raise hope.

You can walk into the artwork consisting of glass forms. The set-up was borne on the spot, on the conditions of the round tower room. The drops cast shadows and reflections. They reflect the surroundings, space, each other and people. A new space is formed with countless images and interpretations.

Partners

The glass forms I have produced in collaboration with the glassblowers Alma Jantunen and Johannes Rantasalo of Lasisirkus in Nuutajärvi. In implementing the exhibition I was assisted by the Research Garden of the University of Kuopio, carpenter Markku Tonttila of Pro Puu in Lahti and museum technician Reijo Helenius of Kuopio Museum. Support to the publicity of the exhibition was given by the Cultural Board of the City of Kuopio.

Photos Kari Jämsen