WAM Kilta Gallery: Heini Aho – Parting

During the renovation of the WAM museum building, the exhibitions of the City Art Museum will be held in the new exhibition space of Art House Turku in Kilta Gallery for the next two years. The gallery has a series of five exhibitions, and five visual artists operating in the Turku region have been invited as artists. The guiding idea of the exhibition series is to invite a writer or an author from outside the field of visual arts as a work partner for each artist. The partner will write a text as part of the exhibition based on the theme and works of the exhibition.  

The exhibition series is opened by Parting, an exhibition by Heini Aho (b. 1979) who lives and works in Turku. In this exhibition consisting of sculptures, installations and media works, Aho observes the distribution, partitioning and segregation suggested by the name of the exhibition, expanding to reflect, for example, on the many meanings of the concept. The artworks focus on these themes both at the individual and everyday level as well as explore how they are present in society and our culture in general. Aho examines everyday matters and objects that we take for granted and their use from a new perspective. The works convey wonder and the need to explore, but there is also a bit of humor in them.  

An integral part of the exhibition is an exhibition text written by the Turku-based author Jaakko Yli-Juonikas (b. 1976), which also functions as an independent artwork. The text offers different perspectives and ways of experiencing the works in the Divide exhibition. Jaakko Yli-Juonikas is the author of some of the most original works in contemporary Finnish literature, including the acclaimed Neuromaani (2012).  

Heini Aho graduated from the Turku Arts Academy in 2003 and from the Academy of Fine Arts in 2015. In recent years her work has been exhibited in several solo and group exhibitions, both at home and abroad. In 2016, Aho was awarded the William Thuring Foundation Grand Prize. Her works are in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, the Saastamoinen Foundation, the HAM Helsinki Art Museum, the City of Turku Art Collection, the State Art Deposit Collection, and the Wihuri Foundation. Heini Aho is a member of the international Videokaffe artist collective.

The exhibition has been curated by Jonni Saloluoma, Exhibitions Curator at Turku Museum Centre. The exhibition is supported by the The Finnish Heritage Agency.  

Photo: Ville Mäkilä, Turku Museum Centre.