Suva’s sculptural experimental instruments in the ARTISTS AT RISK PAVILION in Venice gave a glimpse into a parallel reality.
Suva, as he is known, performs at live events around Finland and Europe, often in collaboration with musicians and sound artists. The sculptures seen in this exhibition are engraved using a burning metal stylo in a technique called pyrography. They are often played as experimental musical instruments in performances in a variety of techniques, including with a bow and using tabla-like tapping rhythms reminiscent of the artist’s Indian origins.
Originally from Shillong, Meghalaya and based in Helsinki since 2009, Suva’s performances explore common grounds, often with a poetic and theoretical context concerning social, cultural and political issues across differences. The pieces in the AR Pavilion focus on the aesthetics on display while directing attention to harsh and yet often hidden issues of inequity trapped and perpetuated by border relations. Suva was an Immigré Artists (IA)-Resident in 2021.
Four recent works are exhibited in the ARTISTS AT RISK PAVILION: a sculptural pyrography Post of Hierarchy (2022), and sound instrument sculptures Presage (2022) Synthesis (2022) and Corporealocution (2022). An image of his works were featured in a recent review of the AR Pavilion: https://bit.ly/zprz-ar
Watch videos of him playing his artworks as instruments here and here.
For more information about his work, and that of the 12 other artists in the ARTISTS AT RISK PAVILION see: https://bit.ly/ar-pavilion-
AR- Artist’s bio page: https://bit.ly/ar-suva
