2020 JAN–JUN
Anna Estarriola stages circumstances
Visual artist Anna Estarriola creates interdisciplinary works in which she reflects on human behavior. Through works that incorporate a range of different media, from synthetic hair to technology and dramaturgy, she explores the means of communication and perception of reality. She arrives in New York for January–June 2020 as the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts artist-in-residence at ISCP, supported by the Saastamoinen Foundation.
The themes of communication and understanding are recurring in Estarriola’s oeuvre as she often not only lets the works interact with each other, but involves the viewer too. She explains her practice as translating mental pictures and visualizations into physical forms, where she invites the viewer to engage with staged environments through movement, narration, and soundscapes in the pieces. In Guided (2019), exhibited at Galerie Anhava, the viewer and the character in the work are connected through headphones – sharing an experience in the exhibition space as well as in another reality.
Estarriola’s interest in the interaction of living and non-living manifests in a wide range of media and materials in her works. She blends audiovisual technologies with sculptural and performance elements. She works with dramaturgical entities that involve different displaying and manufacturing techniques. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of her pieces, and the understanding from many different fields of expertise required, she has collaborated with both Finnish and international artistic and technical teams as well as researchers. Her work presents concepts and perceptions through which she ponders on themes of reality and truth.
“I try to create works that speculate on how intimate and universal topics are perceived, experienced, testified, or categorized as real, while taking into account the desires of mankind to embrace and command, as well as the limited power and helplessness of us. I am interested in the fact that communication implies expressing something, and getting out of the self to a certain degree, and in the fact that through the different forms of communication – from basic daily interactions to global politics – we end up relating successfully or unsuccessfully to others and to ourselves.”
During her six-month residency at ISCP, Estarriola will be working on her upcoming exhibitions in Finland and Sweden where she plans to inquire into scientific and social knowledge and our affiliation to it. She is also looking forward to engaging with international and US-based professionals and audiences, to actively foster future synergies and collaborations.
Estarriola has been working in Helsinki since 2004. Her works are currently on display at Oulu Art Museum and have recently been on display in solo exhibitions at Galerie Anhava and Sinne Gallery in Helsinki, and Pori Art Museum. Her work has also been included in group exhibitions in Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Spain, Germany, and the UK. Anna Estarriola was awarded the AVEK Award of the Promotion Centre for Audiovisual Culture in 2015.