Wednesday, 20 May, 5-7 pm, Gallery Augusta

Peer-to-Peers provide the resident artists with an opportunity to discuss their work to local colleagues and audiences in an informal and relaxed setting. In May, Peer-to-Peer features artists Axel Straschnoy and Barbara Knezevic with guest commentator, curator Pontus Kyander.

Axel Straschnoy (born 1978) is a visual artist from Buenos Aires based in Helsinki. In his work, he employs a wide range of media from X-rays to performative projects to installations. However, the thematic core of Straschnoy’s work is the network of contacts that arises in the process of making, communicating and presenting art. In spite of their conceptual nature, his works are fundamentally based on the process of making things either alone or in groups, on the creation of test platforms and on a sense of wonder, rather than mere analytical thinking. Straschnoy currently lives and works in Helsinki. His latest project Neomylodon Listai Ameghino is currently exhibited at Gallery Augusta Suomenlinna.

Barbara Knezevic (born 1977) was born in Sydney, Australia and lives and works in Dublin, Ireland. Her sculptural work is concerned with how objects function materially, ontologically and economically in the world. The art-objects that she produces embody her interest in the construction of cultural meaning and value. The work is primarily sculptural in form, and probes the peculiar human relationship to the things around us that is typified by the art-object. Industrial, commercial and domestic materials are assembled into tentative, unstable and often temporary arrangements. These constructions are often simple in their composition, but bear the trace of the agency of the artist; a consciousness of the act of art-making, a careful editing and rearranging of objects, that moves the familiar towards the unknown. Barbara Knezevic’s residency in Helsinki has been organised by HIAP.

Pontus Kyander (born 1959) was brought up in Tampere, Finland. With a background in Art History from Lund University in Sweden, Kyander has made himself a well-known authority as a scholar in the arts. For the past 16 years, he has written art critique for various newspapers and art magazines – mainly on contemporary art – as well as curated various exhibitions in Scandinavia. He has also been the editor in chief of a TV-show about culture for Swedish Television, a professor at the EWHA Women’s University campus in Seoul, and was formerly the director of both Sørlandets and Trondheim Kunstmuseums. Pontus Kyander is currently a faculty member of the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts. He is the curator of the Axel Straschnoy’s exhibition Neomylodon Listai Ameghino.

Snacks and refreshments will be served. Welcome!