GALLERY ASKI: RIIKKA KUPSALA – CONSUMING CLOTHES

“I have been preserving my discarded accessories, shoes and clothes from the last 10 years. They have accumulated a total of 301 articles weighing at 44.8 kg. Now these clothes provide the theme and material for my exhibition Consuming Clothes.

In my exhibition, personal information about clothes and their use is in the focus. I have gathered information from my clothes for the different stages of a clothes’ life cycle: manufacturing, acquisition, use, and disposal. I collected information in a spreadsheet from the clothes’ tags and from memory, and by evaluating the garments with my senses and from information available on the internet. I used the collected information as material for the artworks.

The works in the exhibition are mainly tapestries or other textile works e.g. interactive installations. They visualize information and are made of used clothing or recycled fabrics. In some works, I combine personal data with researched information.

My artistic work has been driven by the curiosity to understand how I consume my clothes and what my clothes consume. At the same time, I strive to understand my connection to the sustainability issues of the clothing industry and find ways to do things differently. My work for this exhibition has been supported by Finnish Cultural Foundation.”

Riikka Kupsala graduated as Bachelor of Fine Arts from TUAS Arts Academy in 2017. She works conceptually in time and space arts. Her medium of expression is textile and video, and she often utilizes elements of activism, participatory art, performance, and data in her expression. Kupsala has a studio at Art House Turku.