Failing my mother as an inevitable performative action
Pysyvä osoite
Verkkojulkaisu
Tiivistelmä
The thesis text “Failing Painting my mother as an Inevitable, performative action” is an accompanying part to the series “I remember we had these boxes of paint tubes at home (with labels in foreign language)” including three paintings “ОКСИД ХРОМА ЗЕЛЕНЫЙ with yellow”, “ОКСИД ХРОМА ЗЕЛЕНЫЙ with beige” and “ОКСИД ХРОМА ЗЕЛЕНЫЙ with pink”. In this thesis text, I reflect on the questions I had before making the paintings for Kuvan Kevät, and analysing the outcomes of the work and thinking behind them.
I clearly remember being fascinated by the USA I saw in the television. I uncritically believed in a sort of the American Dream. It was only in my 20s I became disillusioned with, among other things, capitalism and neoliberalism. I chose to concentrate on this image of an Eastern European, who idealises the West, because I have been there. Idealising the West and simultaneously Othering myself as an Eastern European led me to be interested in this notion of stabile and Othered self. Chapters in this thesis talk about the post-Soviet identity which often concerns failure, failure to be like the imagined West to be more specific. I elaborate on that failure, but also the meaning of failure in personal and wider (perhaps political, social, or cultural) sense, and try to see sense in it.
I chose the subject of the paintings to be my mother; I was interested in the relationship between myself and her. Having grown up with a parent whose youth and some formative years fell alongside to the Soviet era, I questioned our differences. The paintings and the thesis are questioning the originality of one’s sense of self: what in me is truly me?
This thesis as a whole consists of a series failed attempts at writing the written part of the thesis. It is a textual collage of failed starts. The chapters flow from one to the next through the connections between one’s end and the other’s beginning. I have incorporated slightly more official text alongside poetical thoughts. The thesis paintings were exhibited in the Academy of Arts Mylly building, on the 6th floor space “Majakka” in May 2022. The thesis paintings were supervised by Liisa Pesonen and Heli HIltunen. The supervisor for the written part was Siiri Haarla. The thesis will be examined by Teemu Mäki and Sanna Tirkkonen.