The characters in Riikka KUOPPALA's films often use their memories as stories that help them survive an identity crisis or a trauma. Her narrative films and videos portray mental and psychological spaces instead of actual events. A trauma damages something so fundamental in us that in order to understand it, our whole being must somehow be rearranged. It can force us to take another look at who we are and what do we believe in the memories have to be reorganized so that they make sense to us again. In her work, Kuoppala describes and visualizes that process of reconstruction, working with and against the conventions of cinematic storytelling.
In several fictional short films, Riikka Kuoppala's starting point has been an era or an event in the Finnish history and how its traces are visible in our everyday lives. In Under a Burning City (2010) she focused on the signs of the Second World War in the city of Helsinki and its contemporary inhabitants' minds. In Singing for Lenin (2014), Kuoppala looked into the heritage of the 1970's Finnish Communist movement Taistolaisuus and its inheritance in today's 30-year-olds.
Other works render visible an internal dialogue and make abstractions of psychological processes related to trauma. Couch, TV and VCR (2012) includes a narrative video and a cartboard box installation. It depicts a child’s identity crisis, the shaking of her whole value system, and the child’s reactions to this.
Kuoppala also has a collaborative documentary practice. The video installation Helsinki-Kushyrgy (2012) is a collaboration with the Mari cultural activist Julia Kuprina. The installation consists of two short documentaries, which shows two different points of view: the history of an ethnographic amateur film archive unique in the Hill Mari region, and the present day struggles of the indigenous Hill Mari culture in Putin’s Russia. Kuoppala’s most recent installation And That's All I Remember (2015) tells about a young Finnish missionary doctor's death in Namibia, and reflects on the influence of Finnish missionaries in the region.
Kuoppala’s work has been exhibited at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (Turin); Le MAGASIN (Grenoble); Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art (Helsinki); Building 110: LMCC’s Arts Center, (NY); Kunsthal Charlottenborg (Copenhage); Finnish National Gallery of Art (Helsinki); Annexe Gallery (Kuala Lumpur) and her films have been screened in museums, galleries and film festivals such as MoMA (NY); Ludwig Museum (Budapest); Loop Video Art Festival (Barcelona); Oberhausen Short Film Festival and Tampere Film Festival.
Riikka Kuoppala received her M.F.A from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 2010 and studied in the post-graduate programme of Le Fresnoy-Studio National des Arts Contemporains in 2013-2015. In 2013 she received the Ducat Prize, an annual award for a young artist, by the Finnish Art Society.
Riikka Kuoppala lives and works in Brussels (Belgium).
In several fictional short films, Riikka Kuoppala's starting point has been an era or an event in the Finnish history and how its traces are visible in our everyday lives. In Under a Burning City (2010) she focused on the signs of the Second World War in the city of Helsinki and its contemporary inhabitants' minds. In Singing for Lenin (2014), Kuoppala looked into the heritage of the 1970's Finnish Communist movement Taistolaisuus and its inheritance in today's 30-year-olds.
Other works render visible an internal dialogue and make abstractions of psychological processes related to trauma. Couch, TV and VCR (2012) includes a narrative video and a cartboard box installation. It depicts a child’s identity crisis, the shaking of her whole value system, and the child’s reactions to this.
Kuoppala also has a collaborative documentary practice. The video installation Helsinki-Kushyrgy (2012) is a collaboration with the Mari cultural activist Julia Kuprina. The installation consists of two short documentaries, which shows two different points of view: the history of an ethnographic amateur film archive unique in the Hill Mari region, and the present day struggles of the indigenous Hill Mari culture in Putin’s Russia. Kuoppala’s most recent installation And That's All I Remember (2015) tells about a young Finnish missionary doctor's death in Namibia, and reflects on the influence of Finnish missionaries in the region.
Kuoppala’s work has been exhibited at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (Turin); Le MAGASIN (Grenoble); Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art (Helsinki); Building 110: LMCC’s Arts Center, (NY); Kunsthal Charlottenborg (Copenhage); Finnish National Gallery of Art (Helsinki); Annexe Gallery (Kuala Lumpur) and her films have been screened in museums, galleries and film festivals such as MoMA (NY); Ludwig Museum (Budapest); Loop Video Art Festival (Barcelona); Oberhausen Short Film Festival and Tampere Film Festival.
Riikka Kuoppala received her M.F.A from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 2010 and studied in the post-graduate programme of Le Fresnoy-Studio National des Arts Contemporains in 2013-2015. In 2013 she received the Ducat Prize, an annual award for a young artist, by the Finnish Art Society.
Riikka Kuoppala lives and works in Brussels (Belgium).