PRESS RELEASE

PARAMETERS OF FEAR

International art events Parameters of Fear -exhibition and Bambi -video screening organised by Gun Holmström at MUU gallery in October 2004. The visual artists in this group came together while attending a recent residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida. While working with artist, Gillian Wearing, the group found much common ground amidst the diversity in their work, co-existing and creating collaboratively with a lively creative and interdisciplinary dialogue and exchange.

PARAMETERS OF FEAR

October 1-17, 2004

The opening is on Friday October 1 at 5-7pm.

Video, photography, installation, artist presentation

Artists: Gabriel Martinez ( USA), Paul Rowley ( Ireland) & David Phillips ( USA), Juliana España Keller (Canada) and Gun Holmström ( Finland)

BAMBI – Video Screening and Artist Talk

Monday, October 4 from 6-9 pm

Featuring works by the following artists:

Gun Holmström (Finland), Juliana España Keller (Canada), Gabriel Martinez (USA), Juan Recaman (Columbia/USA), Catherine Ross (USA), David Phillips (USA) & Paul Rowley (Ireland), Althea Thauberger (Canada) and Kerry Tribe (USA)

Parameters of Fear

An understanding of the “culture of fear” appears now to be of increasing importance. People are far from convinced that things are getting better – rather, that ours is the age of terrorism, environmental disaster and widening inequality. On a personal level, society's pressure on the individual increases, telling us that it's difficult to be satisfied with what life has given, one should always be aiming for something more.

Thusfar, fear has usually been explored psychologically, as one of many emotional states, but there is also a macroscopic view, arguing for the existence of a distinctive 'culture of fear' in contemporary societies. This is a culture built on universal panic, irrational behaviour, extreme and groundless fear, paranoia in the absence of any actual threat. And as society flees in the face of fear, perhaps this flight also takes place on a mental level, both individually and collectively, witnessed in a corresponding change in attitudes, values and norms.

The exhibition “Parameters of Fear” examines manifestations of fear both on a personal and social level, and as captured in the popular imagination. The exhibition aims to serve as a inquiry into how some of the phenomena associated with fear are constituted and negotiated.

Sponsored by Arts Council of Finland, Canada Council for the Arts, Cultural Relations Committee Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism Ireland, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and Canadian Embassy in Finland.

More information: www.muu.fi/parametersoffear, Gun Holmström tel. +46 70 452 0744, gun@gnuh.net and MUU gallery / Timo Soppela tel. +358-9-625 972, muu@muu.fi

GABRIEL MARTINEZ
A PERFORMANCE “THE BLESSING OF THE CITY OF HELSINKI”
8-8.30am on Sunday, 3nd of October, 2004
as a part of the group exhibition Parameters of Fear at MUU gallery

Gabriel Martinez, a Cuban-American interdisciplinary artist from Philadelphia, USA is presenting a performance in Helsinki, in conjunction with the exhibition `Parameters of Fear´ at MUU gallery. Martinez' idea involves sprinkling custom-made biodegradable black bird confetti (modelled after the conceptual posters of skyscapes by the late visual artist, Felix Gonzalez-Torres) over Helsinki from a hot air balloon.

This project is partially inspired by French photographer, Gaspard Félix Tournachon's (Nadar) historical hot air balloon flight (Ascension du Géant) over Paris in 1868, where he captured the 1st successful aerial photograph. Nadar realized at the time the importance of aerial photography for military surveillance and geographical mapping.

Martinez would like this public performative action to invoke wonder and curiosity amongst potential witnesses. The delicate black bird confetti released and scattered over the streets and alleyways of Helsinki are in part celebratory remnants and part omens, that should be a curious discovery for the citizens of Helsinki. Ten kilograms of this confetti will be dispersed from the air at approximately 8-8.30 on Sunday, October 3nd.

The performance will be documented from land and from air as part of the group exhibition `Parameters of Fear`.