Past Art Exhibitions
Teija
July 2006
TEIJA – TUULIA AHOLA
SILVER DARLINGS
The Finnish visual artist Teija –Tuulia Ahola is no stranger to Sutherland and her exhibition at Timespan from 8 July forms the second part of a body of work that focuses on the coasts of the county.
In 2005 at Skerray Museum she presented a work which provoked exhibition visitors to search for gilded stones on a nearby beach.
A year later Ms Ahola has returned to Sutherland to install a work at the invitation of Timespan that focuses on the living history and inhabitants of this east coast village. The show centres on an open invitation the artist has made to inhabitants of the area: “Please join me at Timespan and bring with you old unimportant objects that bring to mind important memories”.
The artist will then assist the visitors to guild the object with silver leaf, transforming it forever. The practice of gilding objects has its origins in Ancient Egypt and is often associated throughout history with religious symbolism and transformation. The collected objects will then become the “Silver Darlings” of an installation that will exist for the duration of the exhibition and then be returned to their owners.
Teija-Tuulia’s concept reveals a connection between her homeland Finland and the fishing villages of Sutherland and Caithness. “The herrings were sent over to Finland by the Scots maybe by your relatives and it was received by mine, (definitely it was keeping us both alive),” she says.
The Great Famines during the 1800s in Finland occurred during the years of the Scottish herring boom and imported salted herring offered a little relief to the rural Finns. Such demand for herring provided employment and hope to a neglected and abused Northern Scottish people.
The Silver Darlings and the other works in the exhibition seek to extend a dialogue that artist Teija-Tuulia Ahola has formed with the region that began with her marriage to an expatriate Scot and developed over many subsequent visits to her extended family in Sutherland since the mid nineties.
“I want to facilitate a dialogue between the past and the present, between memories and people, to celebrate the value of handwork that past generations have realised, and an appreciation of the value of the jobs we are doing now.”