Inheritances, by Hanna Vihriälä

“My work is often based on observations of small things.”

Hanna Vihriälä, previously Hanna Jaanissoo, is one of the most interesting example of contemporary sculpture.
The variety and the originality of materials such as candies, the research of pathos and emotional impact are the most fascinating traits of her works.
Her work is deeply photographical and ironical, with strong connections with childhood memories and the innocence of being a child: the “Candy Rose”, proposed at the “Toghether” exhibition in Kiasma Museum (Helsinki) this year is an attempt to
create something organic and coloured, to transmit an idea of carefree that is no longer usual in the adult life.

Childhood is also represented with all its aftermaths, as the relationship with the father. In the installation “The Father, the Son and the Holy Lake” she tries to create a conceptual approach to the theme of  generation’s chain. As the artists statement at the exhibition, including Villu Jaanisoo, Matti Kalkamo and Heli Ryhänen
asserts:

“When we were young, the father was the lord and master of the house, and the ‘master’s’ voice was heard in the pew,  at school and at Soviet public meetings. We were all born in the 1960s or ’70s, and the society has changed enormously since
then. It is bewildering to discover that we have nothing remotely as personal, yet also as collective, as that image of our  parents. The kind of image that persisted even if you did not have a father – or had one who was never there.”