Metanoia, 2023
School of life exhibition, Sotkamo 2023
Land of Dreams, 2020
Land of Dreams, 2019
Bells for Eila / Eilan Kellot, 2021
Warfare in Heaven, 2020
The Finnish Giant, 2019
Bit by Bit, 2006
Tango Therapy @ Härmälänböle, 2017
Tango Therapy: #Melodycrossesboundaries
English Rose and The Golden Blueberries, 2017
:D , 2016
Implicated, 2016
Fed / Up (sample)
MENU, 2020
Metanoia, 2023Metanoia is a 7-channel video installation that consists of footage shot in a sparsely populated rural area in the north of Finland during the pandemic. The work is autotheoretical, multi-layered and fluctuates between past and present. In a near future scenario, in a world where hurting insects is a crime, father and daughter work as insect police patrolling and monitoring a wild meadow from their workstation. Utopian practices are framed by everyday life events between the daughter and ageing father, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease and is grieving the recent death of his life partner. This single parent father-daughter dynamic sets in motion unresolved issues from childhood, beginning an inner journey of transformation that is gracefully and compassionately witnessed by the father. His presence, decades later, plays an important role in processing these flashbacks and somatic memories—initiating a deeper sense of healing. While the related research into developmental psychopathology, inner processes and daily life unfold, their police work throughout the seasons saves any remaining insect lives, while also monitoring the quality of the surrounding air, earth, and water by using canvas for painting. The nurturing ecofeminist values of the insect police contrast with the status quo of patriarchal systems, represented by their decaying uniforms—leftovers from her father's career as a policeman. This utopian, microcosmic practice between father and daughter mirrors the macrocosm of issues embedded in current environmental concerns. Personal, generational, and planetary traumas interplay, and roles reverse. Hurt, grief, and rage transform into love, compassion, and sensuous environmental actions and activism; perhaps the same qualities that need to be applied to mother earth for the coexistence and survival of companion species. The work has been supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike), the Finnish Cultural Foundation, Kainuu regional fund.Length: 57 min 29 sec
School of life exhibition, Sotkamo 2023‘School of Life’ exhibition at the old village school of Tipasoja, consists of installations and materials personally collected from the people of Tipasoja, a sparsely populated area in Sotkamo, Kainuu. The stories and objects are installed into the school, more or less, in a state it was found; An abandoned mess. In the context of the idea ‘School of Life’ the chaos represents to me what a ‘life left behind’ might look like; A combination of rubbish, stored items, tools, as well as, meaningful objects and materials. It was actually the state of the space - a readymade installation - that inspired me to plan an exhibition for it. The sensibility of the exhibition echoes with the light installation work titled, ‘Observe Yourselves’, located nearby in an abandoned village shop, last year. The silent, abandoned spaces tell their stories, as well as, about our attitudes toward them. The idea of general neglect beyond unused objects, toward all sorts of issues, experiences, other people, and especially ourselves, is at the heart of my thinking.“In filth, it will be found”, a quote rooted in a branch of Ancient Philosophy called “Alchemy”, resonates with an aspect of my own ‘School of Life’; The experience of encountering and working with my ‘shadow side’, a term made popular by Jung. The theme was open for individual interpretations, and thus, the collected materials vary, covering a wide range of associated issues.In addition to the materials themselves, it is the connection between the stories and objects, that suggest and represent the complex and rich tapestry of each individual’s life.The exhibition is funded by the Arts Promotion Centre of Finland, as part of their support program for culture in sparsely populated, rural areas of Finland.
Land of Dreams, 2020Single channel version of the original 3-channel video titled Land of Dreams (2019)Land of Dreams title is a translation of a much loved Finnish tango ‘Satumaa’, which Heidi Kilpeläinen sang during her Tango Therapy performance tour at Refugee Centres and war invalids and their widows homes in Finland. On this tour Kilpeläinen also invited the participants to sing back to her, in their own languages.The performances were filmed and edited into a three channel video installation. Songs and encounters with people from Irak, Yemen, Syria, Afganistan, Somalia and Eritrea – to mention a few – combine with accounts of Finnish war invalids and widows in Kainuu, Finland.Tango Therapy is a performance in which artist Heidi Kilpeläinen sings to one person at a time, sitting on opposite chairs, while rest of the audience listens and follows the performance. Anyone from the audience is welcome to sit on the chair as it becomes free.It is an intimate and personal performance of songs, mainly of Finnish tangos, with no technology or amplification. The focus in the performance is on the human presence and eye contact. Understanding Finnish language is not necessary, it is the melody and the sentiment which communicate beyond the boundaries of language.Supported by: Kone Foundation, Arts Promotion Centre Finland, Beaconsfield Gallery, The Finnish Institute in London, AVEK Lwemgth: 59min 45sec
Bells for Eila / Eilan Kellot, 2021‘Bells for Eila’- an audio work with church bells, was composed during an artist residency in Tohmajärvi, Finland. Sounds of the mechanisms that move and play each of the four bells, was amplified inside the wooden church. This rough, mechanical noise was accompanied by the sound of the bells outside. The name for the work refers to the single grave of a woman, Eila Nupponen, amongst hundreds of male, war heroes. The composition consists of the birth and death dates of lotta Eila, who died while working at a war hospital near the front. 'Bells for Eila' ring for all women. Lotta Svärd Foundation, former Finnish Women’s Aid Foundation, celebrates its 100th year anniversary 2021.
Warfare in Heaven, 2020'Warfare in Heaven' attempts to examine issues around mental health, and a difficult mother - daughter relationship.
The Finnish Giant, 2019The video is based on the life of Daniel Cajanus, also known as “The Finnish Giant”. Kilpeläinen became interested in his story after a genealogy revealed a family connection. Cajanus, who was 247,5 cm tall, made his living by exhibiting himself; he appeared in many European countries and attracted the interest of scientists, laypeople and royalty. He managed to accumulate a sizeable fortune by exhibiting himself. Heidi Kilpeläinen’s research got a new twist when she, by an amazing coincidence, met a woman in London whose father owns a life size study of the portrait of Cajanus, painted in 1734 by a Polish portrait painter Enoch Seeman. The final version of the portrait is a part of the Finnish National Museum’s collection.Heidi Kilpeläinen became known both in the fields of music and visual arts through her HK119 project. In Cajanus she feels she has found someone to identify with, as their life stories share many similarities. They have both found their way from Finland to London and performed in front of all sorts of audiences, assuming a role they have created for themselves. During his day, Cajanus fled war and the Swedish army service, whereas Kilpeläinen is facing the consequences of the Brexit referendum result. Place that has felt familiar, safe and welcoming suddenly feels different.The video’s soundtrack is edited from previously unpublished HK119 demos.
Bit by Bit, 2006Video about Artificial Intelligence and self - replicating intelligent machines, performed by the performance character HK119. An AI takeover is a hypothetical scenario in which artificial intelligence (AI) becomes the dominant form of intelligence on Earth, with computers or robots effectively taking control of the planet away from the human species.Length: 6min 3sec
Tango Therapy @ Härmälänböle, 2017‘Tango Therapy’ is a performance in which I sing to one person at a time sitting on two chairs opposite each other, while rest of the audience listens and watches the performance. Anyone form the audience is welcome to sit on the chair in their turn. The performance is an intimate and personal performance of songs, mainly of Finnish tangos without any technology or amplification. Human presence and the eye contact is important in this piece, understanding of Finnish language is not of importance, it is the melody and the sentiment that communicate beyond the boundaries of language. Tango Therapy has been performed in many different contexts, one of the highlights being my visits to refugee centres where the refugees, inspired by Tango Therapy, sang songs from their own cultures in response, back to me.'Tango Therapy @ Härmälänböle' (Fi. Lauluvastaanotto @ Härmälänböle) was created for Fluxations Media Event in Turku, Finland. In this video version I sing two different versions of a Finnish tango. First song is the traditional version while the second version, sitting in the place of the listener, is sing with nonsense lyrics. This is a short sample of the video. Photo by Jaakko Pesonen.Length: 3min 4sec
Tango Therapy: #Melodycrossesboundaries'Tango Therapy' is a performance in which I sing to one person at a time, sitting on opposite chairs, while rest of the audience listens and watches the performance. Anyone from the audience is welcome to sit on the chair as it becomes free.It is an intimate and personal performance of songs, mainly of Finnish tangos, with no technology or amplification. The focus in this performance is on the human presence and eye contact. Understanding Finnish language is not necessary, it is the melody and the sentiment which communicate beyond the boundaries of language. As part of her 2017 and 2018 Tango Therapy performance tours at Refugee Centres around Finland, I invited the participants to sing back to me, in their own languages.The performances were filmed and edited into a three channel video installation. (work in progress) Songs and encounters with people from Irak, Yemen, Syria, Afganistan, Somalia and Eritrea - to mention a few - combine with accounts of Finnish war invalids and widows in Kainuu, Finland. The project was funded by Kone.Video by Aleksi Poutanen
English Rose and The Golden Blueberries, 2017Sample of 'English Rose and The Golden Blueberries ' in which HK119, Sci-fi inspired 'In - Valid' character from the debut album, appears in this Brexit themed video. She expresses her feelings about her 'second class citizenship' and about how she gets stuck on earth while the lucky ones get to move to Mars. Length: 5 min 8 sec, 2017
:D , 2016‘The poor image is a copy in motion. Its quality is bad, its resolution substandard. As it accelerates, it deteriorates. […] It mocks the promises of digital technology’, says Hito Steyerl in In Defense of the Poor Image and Kilpeläinen’s latest film can be seen as a visual equivalent of this. :D is an absurd exaggeration and acceleration of online imagery (‘the debris of audiovisual production’), ranging from bad quality TV and news footage, to telephone screens and emoticons, which constitute an ever-present part of contemporary (non)human communication. Typically for Kilpeläinen’s work, this piece is composed to repetitive and hypnotizing rhythm. Text by Kamila Kuc (Supported by AVEK and HIAP, Finland)Length: 6min 38sec
Implicated, 2016‘Implicated’ video comments on the social ills and inequality of our time. In the ‘Implicated’ video personal feelings meet global rafts of problems; The anxiety caused by the economic situation, refugee crisis, Brexit, the Islamic terrorism shaking Europe and the transparent corruption exposed by, for example WikiLeaks, are all topics expressed through a performance of frustration. Through her art Kilpeläinen also wishes to raise questions related to the individual’s freedom of speech and decision-making, as well as, the right to privacy. The sounds of the video images with different paces form a rhythmic composition including the highlight of an ‘instrumental solo section’, a performance of raging, that brings the frustration to the audience almost as a physical experience. Kilpeläinen's experience as a songwriter, performer and a singer is apparent in this rhythmic, visual soundscape. (Supported by AVEK and HIAP in Finland and Beaconsfield Gallery, in London, UK)Length: 6min 45sec
Fed / Up (sample)fed / up video depicts mental nausea caused by frustration and it takes a rather physical form on the video and continues – perhaps endlessly – as a rhythmic choir of gagging. The black and white video shows the artist’s nauseous character duplicated again and again as a narrow and pale vertical image with the video ultimately turning into some kind of barcode. The sounds of the video images with different paces form a composition, an agonizing sound carpet that brings the nausea to the audience almost as a physical experience. The creation of the installation has been influenced, for example, by the artist’s frustration with the globalization of food production and the various problems it creates in relation to the origin and production conditions of food. Kilpeläinen’s background as a musician and singer is also nicely conveyed through the soundscape of the installation. (Text: Kati Kivinen, Head of exhibitions at HAM, Helsinki)Length: 4min 57sec
MENU, 2020Sample of a 2 min 5 sec video of a plastic menu folder floating in the sea.
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