Näyttely: Rebecca Sandelin – The 11th Hour 21.5.-15.6.2025

Rebecca Sandelin

The 11th Hour

21.5.-15.6.2025
Keskigalleria
Galleria WW, Walleniuksen Wapriikki
Walleniuksenkatu 2, Juupajoki

The 11th Hour on moniaistinen valokuvan, liikkuvan kuvan, äänen ja installaation näyttely, joka on esillä Wallenius Wapriikissa 10. toukokuuta – 16. kesäkuuta 2025. Näyttely tutkii luonnon, rakennetun ympäristön ja ihmisen välisiä jännitteitä ja kyseenalaistaa niiden erillisyyttä. Näyttelyssä tarkastellaan, miten maisemat heijastavat henkilökohtaisia ja jaettuja ajatuksia, tunteita, mielipiteitä ja uskomuksia, mukaan lukien usein ajateltuja mutta harvoin puhuttuja tunteita, kuten eristyneisyyttä, yksinäisyyttä ja läheisyyden tarvetta. Minimalististen kuvien ja esitystapojen avulla näyttely kutsuu katsojaa pohtimaan ihmisen usein näkymätöntä vaikutusta luontoon ja maisemaan sekä havainnoimaan lukemattomia virhearviointeja ja virheitä, joita niiden hoidossa tehdään.

Rebecca Sandelin asuu ja työskentelee Ekenäsissä, Raaseporissa. Hänen taiteellinen ja luova käytäntönsä ja tutkimuksensa perustuu valokuvaukseen, mutta on hyvin poikkitieteellistä, sillä se yhdistää valokuvausvälineitä ja kuvia taidehistoriaan, visuaaliseen kulttuuriin, taiteeseen, uuteen mediaan ja teknologiaan. Sandelinilla on useita valokuvauksen tutkintoja: Bachelor of Photography (Edinburgh Napier University School of Arts) ja Master of History of Photography (University of St Andrews, School of Art History). Hänellä on myös valokuvauksen maisterin tutkinto Aalto-yliopistosta.

Exhibition Introduction

The 11th Hour is a multi-sensory exhibition of photography, moving image, sound and installation. The exhibition explores the tensions between nature, the built environment and people, questioning their separateness. The exhibition examines how landscapes reflect personal and shared thoughts, feelings, opinions and beliefs, including often thought about but rarely spoken about emotions such as isolation, loneliness and the need for intimacy. Through minimalist imagery and display, the exhibition invites the viewer to reflect on the often-invisible human impact on nature and landscape, and to observe the countless misjudgements and mistakes made in their management.

Rebecca Sandelin lives and works in Ekenäs, Raseborg. Her artistic and creative practice and research is based on photography but highly interdisciplinary, combining photographic media and images with art history, visual culture, art, new media and technology.

Sandelin holds several degrees in photography: a Bachelor of Photography (Edinburgh Napier University School of Arts) and a Master of History of Photography (University of St Andrews, School of Art History). She also holds a Master’s degree in Photography from Aalto University.

Artist Statement

The 11th Hour is a multi-sensorial installation that combines moving image, sound and sculpture to explore tensions between the natural and built environment and question common misconceptions that separate these landscapes from each other. The four-channel video documents a temporary site-specific intervention conducted in 2021 on the border of a nature reserve in southern Finland. In the video, a wide sheet of plastic is almost indiscernible from its snow-blanketed setting. The plastic tarp melds into the land, reflecting the oft-unseen influence people have in shaping the environment and landscape. The video is combined with a field recording in which the environmental sounds of the location are abstracted and made surreal. The installation also features the sheet used in the intervention, which is suspended to create a massive sculpture replicating the shape and form of a snow-laden pine tree.

White Blank Places explores how landscapes are instilled with personal and shared emotions, thoughts, opinions and beliefs. The series reflects on emotions often thought by seldom spoken of, such as isolation, loneliness and a need for closeness.

This world of ours, it bleeds and its blood is on our hands is essentially a mistake that occurred when processing pictures as part of the White Blank Places. The garish red section is where the digital processing glitched, resulting in a field of red that warps the pictured landscape. The picture subverts the sublime beauty of White Blank Places, instead becoming a jarring reflection of the many mistakes and failures made towards caring for our environments and landscapes.

Even though this exhibition includes moving image, sound, and sculpture, photography remains the essential medium of my artistic practice. It informs how I view and experience the world around me while other media expand on my photographic perception and expression of sights, sounds and other senses. The minimalist and pulled-back aesthetic allows each work to work independently but also as an encompassing entity. It also allows the viewer to reflect on individual images and their interconnections.

Rebecca Sandelin is an artist-photographer and freelance scholar in photography and visual culture. She received a Bachelor of Arts with First Class Honours in Photography from Edinburgh Napier University School of Arts and Creative Industries in 2016 and a Master of Letters in History of Photography from University of St Andrews, School of Art History in 2018 where she received a Dean’s Letter of Academic Excellence. She also holds a Masters of Arts in Photography at Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture.

Her broad educational background and sustained passion for the photographic medium has led to a continued development of a holistic understanding of photography and its historical and contemporary contexts and relations to and with art, media, and visual culture.

Her practice includes photographic objects, installations, performances, sound, and video along with academic writing and research projects. Her works have been exhibited in Finland and Scotland, including Streetlevel Photoworks in Glasgow, Scotland and Laterna Magic in Helsinki, Finland.