NZ Premiere for Acclaimed Finnish Filmmaker

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NZ PREMIERE FOR ACCLAIMED FINNISH FILMMAKER

City Gallery Wellington welcomes Finish artist Salla Tykkä to New Zealand for the first time. Salla Tykkä gained international attention with her short film Lasso at the 2001 Venice Biennale and her profile continues to grow. The exhibition Cave & Zoo features four short films by Salla Tykkä, including her most recent film Zoo (2006) and a trilogy of earlier films: Lasso (2000), Thriller (2001) and Cave (2003).

Tykkä’s striking films portray a female protagonist at a moment of awareness or discovery, usually outdoors. Part of the emotional intensity of Tykkä’s films comes from their moody, atmospheric soundtracks which are taken from well-known film scores.

Tykkä says: ‘I believe people have many things in common emotionally.’Viewers may indeed find that parts of these films strike emotional chords, as Tykkä taps into feelings of yearning and a contradictory desire for both isolation from, and connection with, other people. In some films a sense of unfulfillment manifests itself in the desire for drastic action, particularly in Thriller, where in a climactic moment the young girl dramatically shoots a sheep dead through a window.

Cave & Zoo is initiated and toured by City Gallery Wellington. It is generously supported by FRAME Finnish Fund for Art Exchange. It will also be shown at Dunedin Public Art Gallery from 19 May until 15 July 2007. Through May Salla Tykkä will visit New Zealand with her family and present talks about her practice in Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin.

Biography: Born in Helsinki in 1973, Salla Tykkä is a leading young Finnish artist working in film and photography. Recent solo exhibitions include ‘Lucid Dreams’, De Appel, Amsterdam and Museum Het Domein Sittard, the Netherlands (2006); ‘Salla Tykkä’, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland (2006).

Salla Tykkä
Cave & Zoo
City Gallery Wellington
Civic Square, Wellington
12 May – 29 July 2007
Admission FREE

ATTACHED IMAGES: Salla Tykkä
Stills from Thriller (2001)
35 mm film transferred to DVD
Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris & New York

ENDS

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