HAA Gallery presents the exhibition Inflorescence by Landys Roimola 31 August – 24 September, 2023.
Welcome to the exhibition opening on Wednesday, 30 August 5–7 pm!
Image: Landys Roimola – Freckles
Landys Roimola: Inflorescence
Repeatedly in ancient tales, rebellious, independent, sexual, and female characters who fight against the patriarchal order are banished, killed, cursed, or bent under the weight of the prevailing power structures. The Inflorescence series is an altar to rebellion and feminism and reflects on the radical shifts in the relationship to the natural world, nature and dreams. Related to the concept of blooming, Inflorescence installation consists of separate pieces – flowers, each of them representing a myth, a rebel whose resistance still lives strong. The hair takes real and imagined forms like a bunch of receptors, roots, or petals.
Landys Roimola’s (Bogotá) works are based on observations about social problems, identity, and climate destruction. The artist’s works have been seen in solo and group exhibitions in Finland and abroad (Mänttä Art Weeks, Kiasma URB, Tolima Art Museum, El Nogal, Eurocine Film Festival). The artist became interested in exploring identity through art when she learned about her roots in the Muisca and Tairona, who belong to the indigenous population of Colombia, and for whom nature is the ruler of everything. In their opinion, the most important task of humans is to protect nature. For years, Roimola has been fighting on the basis of the same intentions with his massive installations without knowing her roots. Now the artist is pondering on how deep in our DNA the lives of our ancestors are. What if our bodies carry the memory of our values and goals as a community? What happens if someone’s history is erased? We are the ancestors of the future and it is important to be aware of the stories we leave behind.
A series of photo manipulations, Lado Animal will also be seen in the exhibition. In the dreams that translated into this series, her nails got sharp, her eyes became darker and she could see in the darkness. Her hearing got sharper and she could breathe under the water. But it comes with a cost; walls begin to suffocate her, indoor air doesn’t fill her lungs and she begins to destroy all the furniture. Design, fashion, and luxury lose it’s meaning, how could one stay if their blood says otherwise? Where can you go, when you’ll always be chained up by the human in you? Being in between has always been the destiny of the artist, as she never felt like belonging anywhere, to any mold. The only option then is to embrace both sides, to celebrate having more than one life to be lived. The blood in her body circulates faster every day and she has no other option than to follow.
The exhibition space is also occupied by the ninth version of the installation Floor Is Lava. Since 2018, Roimola has channeled her growing anxiety about climate change, mass extinction, the uncertainty of the future, and her feeling of powerlessness in the form of this series of monumental black mountains. The artwork condensates the emotions into a billowing black mass that forces the viewer to stop and watch. Floor is Lava continues to grow as long as the destruction by humankind continues.
The exhibition is part of a wider project dedicated to the adopted, the culturally separated, the lonely, and the lost. History and continuity imagined through the means of art give permission to decide about your own future as well. The focus has shifted from the biological family past to the more universal question of how to create representation and identity for the rootless. In addition, the discussion about climate and the relationship with nature is urgent, especially in South America, whose diverse forests are particularly important in the ecosystem of the whole world. Colombia is the richest country in the world in terms of biodiversity, but the forest and species cover has been at an alarming level for a long time.