Muistatko (a method) / moving image / 04:00 / stills / 2019

In Muistatko (a method) a singer attempts to decipher a song they are singing in a language they do not speak. The 1955 song Muistatko Monrepos'n was the first Finnish record to go gold and is still the fourth best selling single in Finland. The location it refers to occupies a specific place in Finnish cultural memory, as somewhere that was ‘lost’, and as such the waltz is highly loaded. What meaning remains, when the music is stripped away? At present, the nostalgic is not a neutral territory, it can be hard to separate weaponised nostalgia from its more well-intended forms. When its affective qualities are combined with notions of national identity, a potentially difficult space opens up. Muistatko (a method) is about trying to feel the weight of this context, from the outside.

Made as part of the research group In Various Stages of Ruins, facilitated by HIAP / Connecting Points

Exhibited at The Surface Holds Depths, Lappeenranta Art Museum

Screened at Tampere Film Festival, Leiden Shorts, Brest European Short Film Festival, VIDS21 @ Lappeenranta Fortress, and Video Art Festival Turku