Johanna Väisänen (FI): HEAT

How a horse experiences the thrill of speed?

Kuopio-based artist Johanna Väisänen is bringing a video installation, entitled HEAT, to this year’s ANTI Festival. The work will be exhibited at the Kuopio Marathon start line, in the Kuopio Hall on 4th and 5th September.The installation will give viewers a chance to see what harness races and trotting look like from a horse’s perspective. In addition to being herd animals (just like men), horses are prey: running and competing are natural to them. Since they are prey, their field of binocular vision is very narrow compared to that of humans. Horses cannot see directly ahead of themselves nor directly behind, but otherwise their field of vision is almost 180 degrees.

The title of the work, HEAT, refers to the heats that horses run before racing. In Finland, ‘hiitti’ is a type of training where trotters run at race speed in order to give their trainers an idea of their fitness and readiness to take part in a race. It prepares horses for real races.

Johanna Väisänen (FI)

Johanna Väisänen is a visual and media artist and lives in Kuopio. She does not restrict herself to one technique but seeks and learns, if necessary, new techniques after selecting the most suitable approach to her subject. Over the past few years she has focused on video and media installations, some of which have been inspired by nature and water, others by animals. In Väisänen’s works, animals do not belong to nature but to culture.