Past Residents Eeva-Liisa Puhakka
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Picture of me
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A kinetic sound-installation (old milking units, glass tubes, motors and vacuum pumps from old farms). In collaboration with Jonne Pitkänen. Turun Kunsthall. 2021. Photo: Miia Paunula.
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Leave the body, leave the mind, 2019, SeMA Nanji, Seoul, Korea. Installation with distilled and mixed smells, narration with soundscape, lights and humidity.
The practice of EEVA-LIISA PUHAKKA leads the artist herself and the audience to sense. Encountering her works, we should see or close our eyes, smell or hold our breath, and listen carefully or touch. Eeva-Liisa Puhakka works in practices that include olfactory art, installations, sound and text. Themes in her works are the investigation of human and animal dependence, rural depopulation, recycling old machines, making bioplastic and encounters between our senses (especially sense of smell).
Eeva-Liisa was a founding member of Scent Club Berlin, a collective of artists, designers and scientists working in and between scents and smells. Puhakka also works regularly in a curatorial/production role.
Eeva-Liisa Puhakka graduated with an MFA in New Media Art from Valand School of Fine Arts, University of Gothenburg and an MSc in Environmental Engineering from Helsinki University of Technology.
In my residency time, I work on a smell-o-vision project in which I am researching and investigating the senses, aesthetics, and the cultural perception and construction of the our sense of smell. In the Western countries we are missing so much information about our surroundings and ourselves, when we live in this mono-sensory way of experiencing life. Our ability to smell connects us to the animalistic acts of the body but also almost every religion uses fragrances to create a sense of spirituality. Our ability to smell is exceedingly mundane and magical at the same time.
In parallel I continue my projects about bio-based materials and for now I am working on a series of sculptures that uses bioplastics I’ve made.
Eeva-Liisa Puhakka’s residency is part of the HIAP Residency Programme for Finnish and Finland-based artists and art professionals.