Tori Wrånes transports viewers to imaginative marine realms – exhibition opening at HAM on September 27

The exhibition’s title piece, BIG WATER (2022), is a large-scale, six-channel sound and video installation depicting ancient or primordial fur-covered creatures diving and playing willow flutes as they move in harmony with the rhythm of the sea on the coast of Thailand and in the arctic waters of northern Norway. The immersive intensity of the piece is heightened by the slowly rotating viewing platform in the centre of the installation.

“The creatures in the video are ageless ancient beings that were born from the tears of a mountain mourning the world’s destruction. They celebrate the eternal movement and global circulation of the world’s waters, the motions of celestial bodies, and the changing seasons across the globe. The creatures exist beyond consumerist culture, free of gender roles and body image pressures,” says Tori Wrånes.

The video installation will be presented in HAM’s great arched hall alongside performance-like sculptures comprising ready-made objects and motorized movement. The figures in the sculptures consist of strangely mixed elements and their fluid identity is of indeterminate gender. They embrace multiplicity instead of binaries and absolutes. Recurring elements such as bags and gateways evoke the idea of a voyage or an expedition to new frontiers.

“Tori Wrånes is a boundlessly creative and intriguing artist with a background in music. She combines mysterious soundscapes with rich materialities in her videos, sculptures and performances. Wrånes invents humorous, dreamlike rituals and characters whose actions endow everyday objects with transformed meanings, transporting the viewer on an unexpected adventure,” describes Kati Kivinen, Head of Exhibitions at HAM.

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Tori Wrånes (b. 1978, Norway) works across multiple disciplines, weaving together sound, visual art, and performance in her practice. Through warm humour, she crafts a new reality that transcends familiar cultural norms and standards. Central themes in her art are the freedom to be oneself, to explore, to encounter the new, and to empathize. Wrånes has exhibited her work around Europe and also further afield in Australia, the United States and Asia.

This exhibition is a collaboration with the artist and her studio, with all artworks on loan directly from the artist herself. The exhibition is curated by HAM curator Milja Liimatainen.

Produced with support from the Finnish Heritage Agency and OCA Office for Contemporary Art Norway.

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Media representatives are invited to visit the exhibition in advance on Wednesday 25 September from 13:00 to 15:00. You can meet artist Tori Wrånes and exhibition curator Milja Liimatainen. For more information and to register, please contact anna.vihanta@hamhelsinki.fi.

Tori Wrånes: BIG WATER
27.9.2024–27.4.2025
HAM Helsinki Art Museum