Ville Kansanen: Future Primitive

About

Comprised of enigmatic photography, land-art, sculpture and video installation made in the barren deserts of California, Ville Kansanen’s physical practice alludes to a history of primitive art and celestial reverence. The front gallery exhibits Kansanen’s photographic work from his series NUMEN (2015-2021) along with sculptural works and the interactive installation piece Land Reformation (2024). NUMEN is a series of photography, video, and installation-based land art intended to simulate and interact with natural phenomena revered by our early ancestors. The corresponding monograph for NUMEN, published by South Korea’s Datz Press, will be available for purchase. 

Kansanen uses our most ubiquitous visual medium, photography, as if it were a cave painting or a megalith; “In my work, photography is a proxy for a transcended physical reality. A place where matter is rendered translucent and blurred; where spans of time are merged into single moments.” 'Land Reformation,’ executed for the first time, is an installation designed as a communal ritual where gallery visitors cast dry lakebed sand onto water to create new land, mimicking the act of world creation over the course of the exhibition.