Marja Mikkonen (FI): Chameleon

Chameleon is a compilation of photograps through which Mikkonen studies the relationship of performing art and documentation. It is a series of actions and gestures that she will do in all the locations of the festival while the camera records them. They are mini performances whose audience is the capturing eye of the camera. At the same time they are poses, images created for the camera. Only the recording of the works will be presented to the actual festival audience when they achieve an independent status despite their documentary nature.

There will also be other people present in the performance venues so their presence in relation to the actions may assume a similar form as the relationship between a performer and an audience. The presence of these people may also impact on the contents and the formation of the photographs. The secondary emphasis of the compilation is also to play with questions associated with site-specificity: do the actions of the artist and her photos influence the character of the place or do the characteristics of the place -the people who visit it, its hisotry and its physical character and makeup – have an impact on the artist and the photographs created by her?

Marja Mikkonen has graduated from the Turku Academy of Arts. Her diploma work was a 33 minutes long experimental film “99 Years of My Life”, which received a prize in the Cinéfondation student work category in Cannes in 2004. At the moment she is doing MA in The Academy of Fine Arts whilst also doing performances, videos, photographs and installations.