An insight into the experimentation of multi-disciplinary artist, Pekka Niityvirta

I’ve described you as a multidisciplinary artist - though maybe this isn’t how you’d necessarily describe yourself…

I do think, nowadays, that I am a multidisciplinary artist. My background is in photography, but that was just a mere coincidence. The Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma opened in Helsinki in 1998, which coincided with the start of my photography studies, while conceptual art wasn’t a huge movement in Finland at the time. I just knew that I wasn’t painting or drawing. That’s how I ended up doing photography.

How did you end up moving into other mediums, away from photography?

If I was to define a tipping point, it would be the digitalisation of photography. (I'm trained in the dark room and with analogue mediums, spending countless hours perfecting the print and developing different techniques with analogue methods, with chemicals and all that). And then there was digital photography [and] I became less interested in the process of taking photographs, and [more interested] in the meaning of the picture. So the production pipeline changed drastically and I took a small leap towards doing something else, which I had been planning. But it takes a little bit of courage and trust to jump away from something you’ve been trained in. 

Do you think that different mediums are best suited to creating work to convey different messages? 

I used to think that, yes, any medium can convey any message. But it’s not that simple. There’s an optimum medium for certain things, but I think that’s different for everybody; somebody might pick painting, somebody might pick another format. For me, it always changes [in terms of] what feels like the natural way of doing something. There’s always [a sense of] adventure to it. 

I wanted to speak to you about Lines, your collaborative work with artist Timo Aho - which was first installed in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland as a comment on the impact of rising sea levels, and the impact this will have on coastal communities. How did the premise of your collaboration come about, and what does the site specific location of Lines allow people to visualise the gravity of the climate crisis? 

Timo and I have known each other since day one, really. And we spent quite a lot of time planning something together. We started by looking at seaside communities before moving on to rising sea levels and climate change. Timo was living in Scotland at the time, and so it was kind of a natural approach to stage Lines there. I think the location comes first in a way, and it's a very different setting to the gallery which possesses different challenges. When you have a public location, the rules change somewhat and you have to plan the artwork accordingly. It’s more channing for the artist. It might be easier for the viewer, because they can just bypass it, but at the same time, it’s a familiar setting for them. 

How did the Scotland installation compare with situating the work in Miami? 

If you compare the two locations, Miami was more difficult because you have this city backdrop with so much noise that the work starts to disappear in a way. The concept for the visuals of Lines is basically to use the same language as advertising, in terms of using neon light signs on buildings. So when you install that piece in a city, it starts to disappear into the visual noise. It still works, but the experience is quite different. One needs to get quite close because it just blends in. But when you have it in a remote area, the viewing distance can be kilometres.

The premise of Lines has also been adapted as Coastline Paradox (2020), an interactive map with custom-built street views of certain locations around the world, which was made in collaboration with Google. How did this digital version change the intentions of Lines, as a site-specific installation? 

From the start of Lines, Timo and I thought it would be great as an augmented reality project - but at the time, the technology wasn’t really at the right stage to have been easily used. [With Coastline Paradox], it’s art, but then again, it’s relying on numbers though they’re not totally accurate. So I think it’s somewhere between science and science fiction - a kind of strange spot that’s made possible through digital technology. At its core, Coastline Paradox data visualisation, really. But it’s the idea of using the common tools, which are pretty much known to everyone. So, in that sense, the concept behind doing Coastline Paradox is the same as doing it in reality (in familiar settings) [like Lines]. 

You mention that Coastline Paradox lies somewhere between science and science fiction, which is interesting because your work confronts socially-constructed realities. With your trilogy of exhibitions, Monsters, Dark Mills and Angels (2014-20), for example, you blur the boundaries of reality and the imaginary by showing digitally-produced images alongside “real” images without explanation. What informs your interest in challenging these notions of construct realities? 

I think it goes back to the idea of space in general - how that is perceived, and what the actual power of space has, in terms of architecture, but especially the cityscape. Also, the image of nature, for example, is produced in different ways, even commercialised. This whole idea of nature is non-existent, in my opinion. And then, you compare that with Michel Foucault’s idea of heterotopias, which I think still has a profound effect on my thinking. How are things constructed socially, what’s the meaning of it, and who really controls that? Is it centralised control or decentralised control? How do we build these things? And I don’t know, it’s just fascinating in general and I don't think I've reached any conclusions yet!

For the second two iterations of Monsters, Dark Mills and Angels, you presented photographs taken in places like Senegal, Mongolia, the United States and Palestine (the latter two appearing in both exhibitions). In terms of your exploration of socially constructed realities, what drew you to these places in particular? 

That’s partly out of my control - I might be invited somewhere and it’s relevant to my work, like the United States, Mongolia, or Dubai. But with, say, Palestine, I always wanted to go there but felt like I needed a really good reason. It’s a place that is so charged with meaning; and how can one, as an outsider touch this without igniting something you maybe don’t want to ignite? So I ended up documenting Palestine from above, geographically.

Many of the themes that you look at, and that we’ve spoken about, are exploring in different series you’ve done over the years. Do you see your work as distinct projects, or are they more of a continuation - as a larger, ongoing process? 

I’d like to think that it’s enough that I’m involved in the work. Of course, many artists - if not most - employ the approach that they have distinct bodies of work, which I just never felt was my way of doing it. If I’m honest, I just [know when] I need to move on to something else. I feel like changing things, and then might return to something after many years and continue with that. I find it fascinating to mix different themes, methods and mediums. It opens up different possibilities and ways of developing an idea further - say, an installation, a sculpture, clashing with video art - what happens there?