Finnish photographer Juha Metso’s exhibition “Voodoo – Afrikan arkea” (“Voodoo – Everyday Life in Africa” or “Glimpses of Everyday Life in Africa”) opened this week, and some of the exhibited photos were available for public already through Helsingin Sanomat’s web article earlier in September. The photographs represent powerful images of Vodun practices in Benin. The aesthetic and dramatic features of the situations are emphasized – through the use of black and white images, capturing sudden groans and strange movements of people, and creation of strong contrasts – but the photos also depict controversial themes such as animal sacrifice, and show places that are traditionally forbidden from people who are not adepts of the religion.
While aesthetic and artistic, the photos have also received critical feedback in social media and in discussions of the Beninese and also of the Finns who have shared a glimpse of Beninese life or of Vodun religion. Especially the exhibition title’s and text’s (which is also published online) claims that the photos offer views of common life in Africa (“Afrikan arkea”) or show a “sincere” depiction of the Beninese “reflecting themselves as if there were no one else around” is under scrutiny. We gathered together a few points of view that have come up during the discussion.
“When one photographs others, one photographs himself.”
This insight is however omitted in the exhibition text by journalist Matti Tieaho, and a different view – which suggests that the photos depict “primitive locals” and bring the viewer to “the times of the missionaries” – becomes emphasized. The critical view concerning the photographs is that the pictures and their objects are chosen in a manner that supports stereotypes, and thus spread a problematic image of Benin and especially of Vodun, which is, like the Helsingin Sanomat’s article correctly notes, an everyday religion (just like Christianity, Islam, or Rastafarism) in Benin.
The everyday life, however, is not exactly what the images depict according to the Beninese: “These still photos, removed from the context, are deliberately shocking and can be interpreted in many false ways”, Beninese visual artist Victor Amoussou comments. He explains that:
“The photographer is obviously a talented professional, but does not understand what he has captured. In the eyes of someone born in the culture these images are theatrical, some even offensive, especially when claimed they represent everyday Vodun. This is surely not the way to build comprehension between different cultures, this is a moral crime.”
And as Finnish-Beninese musician Gildas Houessou points out:
“At some point we need to stop disrespecting the other cultures. Some of the photos are unfair and out of their context they give a shock effect. But are they really everyday life of Benin? These photos give an image of raw and uncivilized life in our country. Seeing these pictures abroad does not give anything more than a scary Hollywood image of us. Benin is still a calm and peaceful country. This is certainly not every day life of Beninese people.”
Finns attest to the discrepancy between different perspectives. Villa Karo’s former director, writer Miikka Pörsti comments that:
“This visually fantastic series of photos speaks more about the person behind the camera than of those in front of it, as photographer Juha Metso suggests in the related text. But the downside of this is that a few more people will, in vain, be afraid of Benin after seeing these photos.”
Also Jeanette Heidenberg gives an idea of the Finnish perspective:
“The use of black-and-white can be artistic, but to me it creates a distance, making the people in the pictures seem primitive and from a different time. Why were there no more everyday pictures? The text clearly states that Vodun is an everyday thing, but none of the pictures are of people who do things that a Finn can relate to as everyday things. Just kids playing football, for instance, would have been relatable.”
Metso’s photos and exhibition are connected to a book by the same title, also released this week. In the book the photos go along with texts written by writer and director of the board of Villa Karo Juha Vakkuri.
The director of the Society of Finnish Composers Annu Mikkonen commented the photos in relation to the texts, and has an optimistic view about the Finn’s abilities to relate to foreign cultures. According to her, even though the forms of everyday life are different all around the world, they share common features, and this supports understanding:
”I believe that the book is most interesting to people who are interested in other cultures and who understand cultural differences. Those who are looking for a sensation will probably be disappointed.”
As Miikka Pörsti points out, Metso’s photos have opened up an important discussion about the visual and textual representations of Benin and Beninese in Finland, and we hope that the discussion continues. In Jeanette Heidenberg’s words:
“Understanding another culture takes time and respect.”
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There will be a special issue about the representations of “Africa” and “Africans” in Finland in the next volume of Villa Karo’s journal Akpé. Proposals for essays and comments can be sent to toimisto@villakaro.org by 20th October and the deadline for full texts (max. 2000 characters with spaces) is 20th November 2014.
“Juha Metso in Africa, in the times of the missionaries
We all know the exotic travel stories written by our friends, in which the most important tourist attractions, strange animals, the overwhelming heat, the lack of infrastructure and bizarre primitive locals are mentioned.
Extra points can be achieved by friendships from the country in question. An African Facebook-friend belongs to the basic equipment of every Finn who has language skills. Yet all of us who have travelled far away know how difficult it is to reach a sincere connection with people who live in a strange culture.
When did you last see an African photo, where the depicted people live like there is no one else present?
You cannot find a social message in Juha Metso’s Voodoo-photos. No deliberate some-gestures (gestures created for social media) or arrogant visual rebellion. All intentional communication has been cleared out of Metso’s photographs. The Beninese mirror themselves in the photos as if there is no one to see them.
In his Voodoo-photos Metso takes the viewer to the black-and-white era, when the missionaries invaded Africa. Witchery, the living and the dead, goats, cocks, and people living in their time bubble rush to Finland in Metso’s images. The black-and-white transforms into bright colors.
[Added text: -Matti Tieaho / Kouvolan Sanomat]
Metso photographed Africans for two months in late 2013 in Benin, West Africa. [Added text: This exhibition represents his views and experiences, seen through the eyes of a Finnish primitive local.]
Juha Metso (b. 1965) is a photograph artist from Kotka. During the past 30 years he has had almost one hundred private exhibitions in Finland and abroad. He has worked in more than 60 countries, and his work is represented in all the major Finnish art museums.”
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Further discussion:
Also former visitor of Villa Karo, Hannele Huhtala, commented Metso’s photos in her blog in Voima. She points out that even though both parties (locals and tourists) actively participate in mystification of Africa, it is still problematic.
Juha Metso’s interview on YLE. He emphasizes that his photos are a mere scratch of African cultures, and that Voodoo (Vodun) is a much more diverse phenomenon than what is usually perceived in popular culture.
Memory, the exhibition of Anna Retulainen in Helsinki Contemporary 5.9.-28.9.2014. The texts are from pages of Helsinki Contemporary helsinkicontemporary.com
Memory consists of a series of paintings and drawings that examines memory and remembering. The exhibition builds upon the experiences of two journeys Retulainen made to Africa in 2013. The first one started at Villa Karo in Grand Popo on the coast of Benin and took her to the savannas in the northern parts of the country. The second trip, during which she spent time in Boukombe in the Atakora district in Northern Benin, also encompassed travelling in Togo.
Retulainen stayed with the locals during her trips. She observed life, people and values; tried to understand. She also wrote about what she saw, attempting to render everything she was seeing and experiencing somehow believable. The drawings are her notes; drawing means being present.
Anna Retulainen: Lasti (Nigerialaista salakuljetettua bensaa, ruokaa ja valkoinen auto). Photo: Jussi Tiainen
“I’m drawing from observation, the observation is pure. I don’t know what I see, and I can’t understand what functions the objects and occurrences I witness actually serve. I painted from memory. The paintings are attempts to go back. I wanted to be as frank as I possibly could, to paint as soon as I came back home before the traces in my mind would vanish or become something else. The original observation is less present and more diluted in the paintings. While they aim to evoke a colour or shape that I once appreciated, what now remain are mere fragments from the past. As if I tried to remember a person who passed by or a scenery that I left behind.”
“I’ve been drawing the routines here, this strange life that has welcomed me as its guest. I’m being present in relation to these people and their homes. I perceive myself by drawing all this unfamiliarity and strangeness that excludes me from the community. I can never belong. The smallest of all our differences is the skin colour; we don’t meet except through smiles. It’s useless to try to explain this in words to anybody. Nobody who has not been here can possibly imagine how it’s like.”
In connection to the exhibition, Retulainen will publish a book, A Motorcycle Journey: Benin Togo 2013, that is based on her two trips.
An Evening in Paris is an exhibition serving as a preface to the Memory exhibition, it lasts for only one evening. It features the time Retulainen spent in an artist residence in Paris in the spring 2014 and the new works she created there. The discussion will revolve around Paris and its meaning for art and artists throughout history. It will also examine Paris in contrast to Berlin, another important centre for art and hub for artists.
The works in the exhibition are observations of everyday life. Drawn on large as well as small papers, they are depictions of a city called Paris, its past and present, and its memories, both common and collective, and private.
Discussion – Anna Retulainen & Mika Hannula
Mika Hannula: The title of the exhibition, Memory, is a direct reference to its subject matter – literally. Why memory? How did this interest in memory start?
Anna Retulainen: I’ve always done drawings before painting. For example, I always used still-life drawings as the base for still-life paintings. While painting, the lemon was no longer physically present: I had a drawing of a lemon and a memory of it. When I was drawing my mother on her deathbed, I realized that I’d very clearly remember all her facial features and her gnarled hands. This was really the first time that I focused in-depth on her features as a human being. Previously, I’d looked at her only as my mother.
The drawings are usually black-and-white. I look for the colours for the paintings in my memory, and they get mingled up with elements that disrupt observation, like, for instance, the memory of the unbearable heat in the Africa paintings. In Africa my perceptions were pure and free of knowledge and previous experience. I didn’t recognize the elements of everyday life. I drew so that I would remember, and so that I could believe I had been there and experienced it all. For me drawings imply being present in a given situation and places.
MH: How do you experience the materialization of the act itself, remembering, in drawing and painting?
AR: Drawing a thing, a place, or a situation imprints it on my mind. I don’t remember words or names, but I do remember images. The drawing tool traces a line in my memory at the same time as it leaves a mark on the paper. That is why drawings are ultimately unnecessary to me. They are only an intermediary.
MH: A drawing as an intermediary for a painting, yes – but what about the works that are drawings, for example, from the series you made in Benin, and which are in the new book. How does making them through and with the aid of memory make and produce reality in this series, both in its continuities and in certain exceptions? It seems memory in this case would not be a mere result of copying and recording. Rather, it would serve as a certain intermediate space that gives a pulse and space for something new and special.
AR: The drawings are not an intermediary for a painting, but for the image I immortalize in my mind, my memory. This image is real to me, I have experienced it. The drawings do not just record the reality that I see; they contain the whole situation, my own presence in it; my own state of mind. If I am hot and hungry, my perception is very different from when I am feeling good. Hunger and heat are good metaphors in the sense that they were powerfully present every day in Africa. By drawing I order and give shape to my environment. My drawings are very personal, they are my experiences.
I’d say the paintings are more like intermediaries, between me and the viewer. They are detached from the original experience, but at the same time they make it visible to the viewer.
MH: The exhibition is strongly linked with the time you spent in Benin. How did the time and experiences in Benin affect your way of working?
AR: I suppose at first I imagined I would be liberated. But now I would see the liberation being linked to a total lack of understanding of events, places, the language. I did not understand or even recognize anything at all around me. My own expectations and cultural determinants became useless because there was no room for them in my life there. What little I learned to understand of the local customs and life ultimately became a shackle that limited me even more than my own cultural expectations. I also got tired of constantly being a target of negative attention and an object of observation. Being aware of who I am became pointlessly important.
This didn’t happen on my visit in spring 2013, but only during my five-week motorcycle trip the following autumn. I was then constantly, for 24 hours a day, outside of my comfort zone. I was intensely aware that, if I didn’t draw, I wouldn’t believe my own stories later on. Drawing also gave me an excuse for being there. In the end, nobody questioned my existence. The most interesting thing about drawing was noticing that everything was alien. I was forced to look and think carefully about what I was seeing before I drew. At home a large part of my observations are constructed from memory. In Benin, however, I couldn’t use my memory – everything was new and strange, including people’s features.
I’m not able to experience the Africa that I encountered solely as a visual and experiential source of inspiration. I didn’t understand what I was seeing, and now, ultimately, I’m not sure whether it would be better if I still didn’t understand. The poverty, the squalor, the constant pleading and begging, the world of values and actions that was totally alien to me, all overwhelmed me. And it defeated me. I don’t want to think about the overpopulation in Nigeria (and all the other countries), or about the continent’s growing of plastic. The tropics cover and conceal the plastic. But it is and remains on the ground, and ultimately destroys everything. And I can do nothing about it.
MH: What about Paris, the residency there in spring 2014 – how has that affected your way of working?
AR: Paris was wonderful. I felt perfect peace there, and I found Paris the most comfortable city I have ever lived in. I fitted in with the majority there. I could walk around in peace, live a life whose basic structures and rules were already familiar to me. I was able to take some distance to Benin and Togo and the realities there. The drawings and writing I did in Paris and afterwards have rendered my African journey something true, something that really happened. Without them I would definitely believe I had imagined it all. It possible I may have actually distanced myself so much from Africa that it would be hard for me to go back there now. I guess I had to admit to myself that I am European and that I enjoy life in Europe.
MH: How do your experiences in Benin and Paris compare with each other?
AR: A white woman from the first world in black Africa is like a lighthouse. This was intolerable for me. I loved Paris, because I could walk around in peace, people barely notice passersby there. The most important thing both experiences afforded me was the chance to work in peace. I was beyond the reach of the expectations and determinants of my home country. I felt alien in both places: in Paris in an enjoyable and calming way; in Benin and Togo, at certain moments, in an extremely oppressive way. The fact that an adult person can do nothing, knows nothing, and is ultimately unable to engage with their fellow human beings on any recognizable level was intolerable for me in Africa.
I am not prepared to adopt alien customs; I can be a guest and respectful, but I can’t be changed. The centre of Paris is perhaps the one world’s most exclusive places. Everything is beautiful, the streets are cleaned every day, the food and pastries are, at best, works of art. People drink champagne and eat oysters. The city is filled with amusements: opera, theatre, music, countless museums and art galleries. People have Internet connections, and every possible personal entertainment device is available. In Boukoumbé there was no electricity. There was one bar that was alright, but became infested with mosquitoes as soon as it got dark. And the darkness lasts for 12 hours. The temperature at night is over 30 degrees. I’m glad that I have visited both places, and that I can now concentrate on growing vegetables in the peacefulness of Helsinki.
MH: And how, on the other hand, was Benin, through its colonial history and current contemporary situation, also present in Paris? How does this special arc and connection affect your work?
AR: I was in Benin when it became clear to me I’d have to go to Paris next, although I still did the motorcycle trip in Benin and Togo before Paris. I couldn’t understand anything about the life around me: I couldn’t decipher what was originally a product of the old colonial power, France, and what was African. In order to be able to grasp at least a little bit of all that, I knew I had to go to Paris. I had never lived in France. I’ve lived in England and Australia for longish periods, and I think I can recognize Britain’s influence on its old colonies. Consequently, in the end, another option would have been Ghana, but I don’t think I would’ve been able to stand it. In Ghana I might’ve been able to distinguish between what was African and what was of colonial influence, and I think that would’ve also helped me better understand the corresponding dynamic in the former French territories.
France’s presence in Benin and Togo is very visible and also, in my opinion, quite oppressive. Almost all tourists there (very few) are French or from Francophone areas. Information, schoolbooks and, of course, the language and all bureaucratic and administrative practices are inherited from the French. In any case, I am not particularly interested in colonialism. Yet it is impossible to miss it in the old colonies, where the presence of the “mother country” can be powerfully discerned in people’s ordinary everyday lives. My awareness of this was reinforced in Paris.
The way I felt about and related to Paris would’ve been very different had I not been in Benin. Simple observations I probably wouldn’t have noticed before: Paris’s city centre is extremely white. Disconcertingly white for the capital of Francophone Africa in Europe. The blacks are ‘hidden’ far from the city centre, except for the small, but lively Chateau Rouge commercial district. There it’s actually possible to sense something of Africa’s life and fragrances. The great dream of Europe and Paris ends in the sewer, and people from sub-Saharan Africa end up selling kitschy Eiffel Towers to tourists. The towers jingle and clatter as the sellers come out of the sewers. The story people tell at home in Africa is bound to be a lot more glamorous.
The pompousness of Paris, the victory symbols, the luxury oozing out everywhere and, on the other hand, the remnants of the colonial period such as the human zoo, took on a different meaning in my mind. The Eiffel Tower, a 320-metre-high, totally useless iron structure, with the zoo’s newly renovated 65-metre-high artificial mountain and the giraffes walking around it – a neat miniature Africa. Suddenly there was an awareness of Europeans once bringing citizens of their old colonies to “human zoos”, where people could go and marvel at them. In the same way as they now marvel at giraffes around the high mountain. Total exploitation and incomprehension are still a reality. People are very unequal, which is a self-evident statement, but now it has considerably more meaning to me. Things that previously were self-evident in everyday life aren’t self-evident anymore.
The subjects of my drawings are selected very much on the basis of my experiences. I would’ve never sought out and found the ruins of the human zoo from the 1931 colonialist exhibition in the Bois de Vincennes had I not been in Benin, the former Dahomey. I had read that there was a Dahomey pavilion there and I wanted to see it. I spent my birthday in the area, drawing. Now, the Human Zoo series is an important part of my exhibition. My attention was drawn to things that I would hardly even have glanced at before, or at least I wouldn’t have tried to remember them. Now, I went back and drew them, and I remember.
MH: And these experiences birthed the works, both drawings and paintings, that are now in the exhibition.
AR: Yes. I don’t think I would’ve drawn the Eiffel Tower without considering the relationship between Benin and France. It is, of course, a frequently drawn subject, and I perhaps could’ve approached it through art history. Now, however, I see it as a symbol of power and strength. The Champ de Mars park surrounding the Tower used to be the human zoo, the village nègre. The Tower outraged the residents, but apparently the village nègre didn’t, or at least I haven’t found any mention of it. Nowadays, blacks sell flashing kitsch-Eiffels beneath the Eiffel Tower, in the same place.
I made the Tricolore drawings on my last day in Paris. All I had left was red and blue, plus white paper. I continued painting it once I was back home. The endless boulevards and squares, the Egyptian obelisks, the fat, winged woman high up on the top of a column, the equestrian statues. The Eiffel Tower and one of the Catholic Church’s most important landmarks, Notre Dame. The steps up to the Sacré-Coeur and the city gleaming in white. The triumphal arches and the arrow-straight Axe historique from the Louvre to La Défence, the fluttering French flags. The river and the bridges, and the artificial mountain looming in the distance. The pomp, the power, the history, the pride. The words liberté, égalité, fraternité written everywhere.
“I hear it’s louder here now than during the Winter war”, said member of the jury and outsider artist Eero Pulkki as the Bear sculpting championships had just begun in the keskusta of Ilomantsi, 10am this morning. Many of the 32 competitors are using chainsaws. However, some of them, like Beninese competitor Florent Nagoba, scholarship holder for VK and the Union for Rural Education and Culture, work with their handmade custom tools.
Estonian sculptor colleague Raivo inquired if Florent’s instruments had been made the same way as the Sampo. Yes, his tools are an accomplishment of a very skilful blacksmith (taitava seppä in Finnish, kvalifitseeritud sepp in Estonian). But unfortunately, for both Finns and Estonians, the Sampo has been destroyed a very long time ago. As the picture tells, talk of this tragedy devastated both competitors. To not unnecessarily darken the moods of the sculptors, the VK media team left the premises to enjoy a cup of coffee and a delicious vatruska in the nearby coffee shop.
Nevertheless, the competition is now on and our cheering thoughts are with Florent, proud son of Benin, who competes as number 24 until Saturday morning. By then his artistic vision and gifted hands will have turned a large log of scots pine into a bear.
ILOMANTSI. Several gunshots have been fired in the forests surrounding Ilomantsi during the last 24 hours and at least seven casualties have been reported. One more soul is destined to leave behind its earthly vessel before ceasefire. Probably by dusk, the blood of one more will have been spilled into the rich soil of North-Karelia – and Ilomantsi’s killing quota filled.
It is the never-ending struggle between man and bear taking place once again, as it does every autumn in Finland. For those worried about the county’s bear population, let us remind you that there are some 200 adult bears plus from 1 to 4 baby bears per bear mother living on Ilomantsi’s grounds (3172km2).
Ilomantsi’s hunting quota of eight bears this year is excellent news for VK and MSL scholarship holder Florent Nagoba who competes under the number 24. Why is that? It’s simply because of the magic of the number three. Aha! Three times eight equals 24. This is a very simple case of natural math practiced daily in VK. Let us now present you some hard evidence behind this calculation.
Akasia reporting team counted over 90 circles on this piece of log that comes from the same pine that Florent is carving. It means that the tree is over 90 years old.
Three is of course an important divine number in many worldviews. It is present i.e. in the Christian trinity, the Hindu Trimurti and the three layers of the ancient Finnish mythical cosmology.
And there is also the so-called rule of Three in story-telling and writing. This rule implies that three is good and three is nicely unstable and that whenever there’s a three, something is bound to happen. Ceasar’s famousline veni, vidi, vici, The Three Musqueteersby Alexandre Dumas and Goldilocks and the Three Bears are well-known examples of this truth.
All this evidence presented to you is to describe the good story we are all living in today in Ilomantsi (except for the eight bear casualties, of course). Florent is working side by side with colleagues from Finland, Italy, Lithuania, Estonia, Hungary and Russia. There’s lots of laughter and sharing: “Here, try this tool of mine!”, “Hey, could I see some pictures of your work?”, “Sure, thanks, kiitos, grazie, akpe, spasiba!”
In a couple of days, at noon on Saturday, when the competition will end, we will know the ending of the story. Here, we know it’s going to be good, whatever happens.
Today we’ll let Florent concentrate on his work, but before that we’ll to ask him how are things this fine North-Karelian afternoon.
“Ça va!”, he says with a smile.
Florent’s first name is Coovi as he has been born on a Friday. We nicknamed his log Coovi, too. Coovi is a fine gentleman that is over 90 years old.
