RioVida Art

Big Bang Installation about the artists

Kalervo and Niina Karlsson

Big Bang Installation by Pessi Manner and Kalervo Karlsson, Soundwall by Heikki Savolainen, Helsinki, Finland

Kalervo tells us that he and Pessi Manner, his collaborator on the exhibit, felt that is was like a womb, "a place in which to be born again" Kalervo was born on an island, a little outside Helsinki. The Suomenlinna is a popular tourist destination that has hundreds of years old French and Russian castles. They are well preserved. During the summer tourists enjoy to dine in the many fine restaurants or go swimming in the ocean.

The concept of being born was the reasons the artists alled it the Big Bang.. Pessi is a popular and prolific sculpturer. He is also an avid environmentals and lets his art speak louder than words. Here you see the "Luonto Vastaa". In his petroglyphic pieces he cuts the outside of mountains. His work will be seen in a few thousand years. www.pessimanner.net

"Luonto Vastaa" • Eno, Kuusjärvi, 240 x 240cm. 2006 by Pessi Manner

The paintings Kalervo and Pessi created for the Big Bang installation aim to create a "space like feeling!" They kept the paintings simple like the early cave paintings of mankind. The rifle gallery is also a "cave" so they added modern cave paintings. They emulated shamans who usually painted on cave walls about their rituals In the early days of mankind. In the Big Bang the artists become the modern shamans celebrating new rituals.

Every piece of material used was already on the island. The entire installation is a fantastic example of recycled art. The modern ritual encourages the viewer to turn ugly waste into art. Out of waste comes beauty. Life is reborn.

The soundwall is made by Heikki Savolainen for both the Installation and the concert - see next page. The sound that starts the installation was created by banging one of the "paintings" like a "shamans drum" and then lowering the hertz levels of the sound to create a huge electronic whale like sound.

Kalervo, Pessi and Heikki put all this together in a "architectronic" way to make it look like a "spiritual architectronic powerhouse".