FINNISH BROWN BEARS JUUSU AND TESSU COLLABORATE WITH TEA MÄKIPÄÄ...

An  exhibition of "How to be an Animal: Works in Progress"  by Finnish artist Tea Mäkipää includes an intriguing mix of photographs of Australian native animals, bear prints and a video installation showing artist bears in action. Visitors to the  Esperance Community Arts Gallery  at the Museum Park Village are definitely  in for a treat! 

The images of Australian native animals are from the artist's recent 8 week artist in residence program at the Cannery Art Centre which was  sponsored by Perth based International Art Space and DADAA Inc. The final outcomes of her Esperance residency will be exhibited both in Esperance and Perth in February 2015.

The video installation and bear prints document  Juuso and Tessu, two Finnish brown bears, venturing into the world of art making as they collaborate with artist Tea Mäkipää.   Their material investigations include painting (with non-toxic acrylic paint) and carefully dismantling a clay installation created by Tea Mäkipää.  

Some may be throwing their hands  in despair by now at the thought of "humanising" the mother bear and her cub. However, the artist might be  right and  there  is not enough "humanising" happening and as a result we humans cannot relate to other species all that well?  As a consequence we do not understand their needs or do not respect their rights to life, habitat and resources which would allow them to survive in the wilderness. The Finnish brown bear, for example,  is usually portrayed as a wild and dangerous creature. 

Tea Makipaa's collaboration must be seen in the context of her  passion for conservation of native animals anywhere. She constantly invents new ways to engage her audience with animal rights. Hence I am not surprised to find that there are only an estimated 900  - 1000 brown bears still living in the wild in Finnland. And, whilst the bear has the honour of being Finnland's national animal -  it is still being hunted!

Some humans kill for pleasure and disguised as a sport, bear hunting adverts can be found online.  The killing is  officially  sanctioned by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry who set the number of bear hunting permits at 132 last year. 

"However the Finnish Wildlife agency has issued additional permits in areas with dense bear populations or where the bruins cause the most damage. 

The Agency granted 45 additional hunting licenses to hunters in eastern Finland, while 36 extra permits were issued in central and southeast Finland. Hunters in southern and western Finland received 9 additional permits..." 

( http://yle.fi/uutiset/bears_in_the_cross_hairs__hunting_season_fires_up/6784842)

This means that almost a quarter of the bear population in Finland got culled in 2013! 

Mäkipää's  collaboration  with the mother and cub reveals some very endearing characteristics about bears. The Finnish brown bear is  an intelligent, curious, gentle, playful and cooperative creature when circumstances allow it - no different to (most)  humans!

The outcomes of Juuso's and Tessu's artistic endeavours are delightful and sophisticated works of art. With Mäkipää's assistance the bear painters create unique compositions on wooden panels which display a surprisingly large variety of marks  from bold to whimsical -   a credit to the animals' innate motor skills, intuition and playfulness with the materials. The bears' engagement with the installation reminds us of both the creative and destructive impulse in both animals and humans and how entwined those impulses are at times! 

Juuso and Tessu. have become worthy representatives of their species in our contemporary art world. Their works can be recognised as spontaneous acts of creation. This artistic collaboration between Tea Mäkipää and the bear artist duo draws attention to the mechanical intelligence and creative capacity of all species. Further, the need for conservation and respect for all native animals is highlighted by the artist and her bear collaborators.  

It is a real shame that the exhibition is only on display for 4 days and closes at 2 PM tomorrow afternoon (31. of January). I hope many Esperance people and visitors will go and  see the exhibition before it closes!


Monika Thomas



All Images are copyright Tea Mäkipää.

My Artist Manifesto...

KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND BEWARE OF GLITTER.
THE FAINTHEARTED WILL CRUMBLE AND AQUIT THEMSELVES.
THE IMPETUS FOR CREATING EMINATES FROM WITHIN
TO REVEAL AND TRANSFORM ANCIENT LIFE PATTERNS.

SMITHSONS ENTROPY IS VERY REAL.
WE MUST SURRENDER FEAR OR FACE EXTINCTION.
 YOU ARE A SERVANT TO NATURE AND TO NURTURE!

Monika Thomas 2013

I merged my manifesto text with an  image that represents "misery".  Misery can be an honest friend, producing new insights and inviting contemplation. For example, the  word "nature" in my  manifesto refers to its original meaning which is  "to give birth". Artists are meant to give birth to their work. The process can be  really messy - not unlike childbirth. 

For me things don’t fit neatly. Words attempt to create an illusion of stability and permanence about what is essentially fragile, transitory and elusive. Even this artist manifesto is history the moment it has been written. It becomes contestable but also serves as a loose framework to be fleshed out and tested by the artist and the future. So it stands as a sign post.

Art making is laborious and  always happens in somebody's presence. My philosophy is to evoke and  capture moments of insight before they escape me.  Visual art is much more than words can express but  they also adhere to visual symbols and hint at new meanings. 

Manifestos hold creative and political conviction. 

Why art is meant to be civilising - not war!

How we respond to art is at times unpredictable.   Works of art are interventions to the spaces they occupy -    public or private -  and they provide  us with opportunities for real encounters where we come face to face with our physical,   intellectual, spiritual and emotional potential and limitations. Encounters with art can create unique personal experiences,  narratives and conflicts within us which are not necessarily related to the artist, even though the trigger  was an encounter with art. 

Western Australian born artist  Gail Hastings uses the term  "intersubjetive“ spaces for those places where encounters with art can happen.   She explains such experiences  as  ‘that which occurs between two subjects' - mostly communications, miscommunications and misunderstandings.   Hastings  likens  an "intersubjective space of visual art" as  a

... field of foibles in which we often find ourselves stranded when faced by another, whether the person across the counter, who tells us we can't be served because we didn't wait in queue (of which, behind us, there is none), or the boss we try to impress who continually forgets our name. Maybe, 'intersubjectivity' is sounding a little too familiar now -  need I go on?  So what has this to do with visual art?

Hastings refers to the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacon when she says that what we fear is not what we ‘see of the work of art’ but rather what we uncover about ourselves through the process of experiencing art'. She points out how this guessing leads to fear and distrust that the artist may be fooling or shutting them out. They become ‘scared of losing the upper-hand, of being exposed... '. It is in that moment, when communications break down between art object and the viewer that the "battle lines" are being drawn:  the art object on one hand and the disgruntled and confused viewer on the other.  And exactly at this very moment the act of seeing art  becomes  an opportunity for  'laying down our gaze as one lays down one's weapons' because art is meant to be civilising - not war‘.

Art making and experiencing art are both active ways of  part-taking in our ongoing democratic experiment in my view.  Every time an artist is censored or shut down democracy dies a little! 

So we have to become more mindful how we respond to art. Censorship or aggression is not the answer.

If our democratic ambitions include a vision for a healthier, fairer, more balanced society then conflicting or startling ideas should lead to dialog not aggression. Imagine if this was our shared reality and normal? It would be so much better for our physical and mental health! I for one salute Hastings for saying it aloud: 

'Art is meant to  be civilising - not war!' 

Hastings, G (2007) The intersubjective space of visual art, Art Monthly June 2007 (No. 200). pp. 44-45, National Capital Printing, Canberra.