Vappu Jalonen

Distress Run

with Elis Hannikainen

Video work, text installations, sculptural objects, sound, light

HAM gallery, Helsinki Art Museum, 2021

 

The first round starts when you manage to get out of the house, and continues with your enjoyment of being an active citizen and belonging to a group with OK oxygen uptake and speed endurance.

The way the bodies that do physical exercise are presented is often very strictly defined: the bodies are able and fall within the norms. A moving body is measured and developed, and it is healthy. However, finding cracks in this character is not difficult. Distress Run focuses on what goes unnoticed in representations of sport and exercise.

The exercising bodies in Distress Run are awkward and in need of support. The works use the theme of sports and exercise to depict various subjects: the leaking, unpredictable body; tiredness or depression; gender anxiety; the disgusting sisu (grit) that is linked to nationalism; the material support kinesiology tape provides for the body; fantasies of lying on a mattress made of slushy snow. Distress Run repeatedly situates exercising bodies, placing them within desires, norms, the matter of a body.

Distress Run is based on Hannikainen and Jalonen's endurance sports hobbies, running and cross-country skiing, and their shared artistic process. In the exhibition, the artists continue their work that focuses on everyday bodily experiences, means of support, and questions related to power.

The exhibition was funded by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland, the Promotion Centre for Audiovisual Culture (AVEK), and the Helsinki International Artist Programme (HIAP).

Sound design: Kaino Wennerstrand