Imprisoned, FLASH3, 2021

The theme of the Finnish Light Art Association FLASH Exhibition in November 2021 was light and death. My light installation was in a former army prison’s Kasserisiipi. The place had been used as cells for “red” prisoners after the Finnish civil war, many of whom waited for the death penalty to be carried out. The small booths were later used as police cells. Normally they are closed for tourists.

In my installation the space was divided in two with bars. On one side, behind a transparent film, there was a swarm of weakly fluttering moths. Some of the paper moths had spread to the bleak corridor side, on the stove and the cell doors. A light shone from behind the bars.

Moths are strange animals, living in their winged form only a short moment. I wanted to compare them to people who had become repressed, the randomness of life and to fear. I wanted to illuminate the space used for punishment. The space made the task special for me as an artist when compared to all the other places I have shown my works in.