Exhibition opening on Tuesday April 1st from 5p.m. to 7 p.m. Warm welcome!
Petra Giacomelli is a Finnish artist who has lived in Italy since 1983 and graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. Giacomelli's exhibitions are often thematic or have strong links to literary sources. Artist books, wordless stories realized in old glued-on books, have been her signature works for years.
As a child, I was often looked after by my grandparents. They were from Kurkijoki and Pyhäjärvi and ran a small grocery store in Kiviharju, Lappeenranta. In the late 1970s, Kiviharju, with its wooden houses, narrow alleys, huge trees and small cottages, was replaced by new prefabricated houses and constructions and now lives only in memories. The inspiration for my exhibition was the experience of “travelling around the world in Kiviharju”. It was a childhood game and a symbolic journey, which included intermediate stops and camping on the steps of different houses. The hike in the microcosm of the wooden town and the (eternal?) return to the starting point remained in my memory as a kind of ritual. Many of us have our own “Kiviharju”, a beloved landscape, a “locus amoenus”. My grandparents’ neighborhood was like a multi-coloured tapestry, in which later experiences have been reflected.
In the exhibition I want to briefly bring Kiviharju back to life in the 60s. The memories of the war were still fresh and the border was close. Lost Karelian area was much more than the cross-stitched Vyborg Castle on the wall of a chamber. I heard endless stories from the shores of Lake Ladoga, but the war was kept quiet... There were evacuees in the neighborhood, Russians, Germans from Vyborg, Karelians from Viena, etc. Some could not read and brought letters to the shop to be read. People carried their stories with them. The idea of ever being able to visit the other side of the border was utopian... Now the border is closed again.
My works depict the old Kiviharju through free associations and symbols. They are collage paintings on canvas, paper and old books. The documentary part of the exhibition consists of photographs taken by my father, Pertti Paajanen, in the 1960s and 1970s of the houses, yards and streets of Kiviharju before the area was demolished. The story of Kiviharju is one of the many disappearances of the old building stock and traditional urban environment that occurred in post-war Finland.”
The exhibition was on display at Galleria Pihato in Lappeenranta in April-May 2024.
work above Petra Giacomelli: Former chapel
