finnfemfel and writer and curator Mika Hannula, Berlin, pick up where they left off in their last exhibition at Axel Obiger, ZURÜCKBLEIBEN! (Stay Back!) (2018). But this time they take off deep into Space: the Final Frontier. They have their sights set on self-realisation and ignite the next stage: WEITER – VOLLDAMPF VORAUS / FORWARD – FULL STEAM AHEAD [long – higher – richest]

In times like these, there is comfort, a certain sense of needed security expressed in dimensions. You know, to be reminded that the only way is up and how perhaps the single real worry that shadows our everyday is the question how low we can go. Dimensions, in these times of plural crises of inflation, recession and annexation, provide us with the necessary directions and the open-ended relations.

The only thing that remains a mystery is this: when is up really up and what does it mean, like truly and duly, to be down and out? And, hand in heart, what do where do when we reach that point of no longer searching for the when and where and face the beauty and the beast of this and now?

With the current exhibition of the Finnish-based collective finnfemfel (word-play in Swedish: Find Five Foults/Five Finn Faults), the almost annual get-to-gether of the group, with the usual number of invited guest appearances, the focus is on the space as a place.

This is the very central condition of the condition of late modern dreams and tragedies, the full-blown projection surface for our brightest ideas and worst nightmares. This is an imaginary space where no one, let us repeat it, no one is innocent, and a space that is increasingly crowded with cultural and corporative references from near (domestic and personal) and far (cultural lost and found artifacts), from dear (Rocketman song) to disgusting (ridiculous hobbies of the millionaires).

And what will finnfemfel do, how will they make and shape that very site and situation, how will they twist and turn the expectations and anticipations? Well, come on, telling it would spoil the surprises. Thus, you are required to attend, to be there, and to share that moment of wonderful amazement of looking up and wondering what do we see – not in the sky but in and with the space as a place, its numerous playful reflections and after-images.

Mika Hannula

he packed my bag la nigh pe-fligh
Zeo hou 9:00 a.m.
And I’m gonna be high
A a kie by hen

I mi he Eah o much I mi my wife
I lonely ou in pace
On uch a imeless fligh

And I hink i gonna be a long, long ime
‘il ouchdown bing me ‘ound again o find
I’m no he man hey hink I am a home
Oh, no, no, no
I’m a Ocke Man
Ocke Man, buning ou hi fue up hee alone

And I hink i gonna be a long, long ime
‘il ouchdown bing me ‘ound again o find
I’m no he man hey hink I am a home
Oh, no, no, no
I’m a Ocke man
Ocke Man, buning ou hi fue up hee alone

Ma ain’ he kind of place o aie you kid
In fac i cold a hell
And hee no one hee o aie hem
If you did

And all hi cience
I don’ undeand
I ju my job five day a week
a Ocke Man
a Ocke Man

And I hink i gonna be a long, long ime
‘il ouchdown bing me ‘ound again o find
I’m no he man hey hink I am a home
Oh, no, no, no
I’m a Ocke Man
Ocke Man, buning ou hi fue up hee alone

And I hink i gonna be a long, long ime
‘il ouchdown bing me ‘ound again o find
I’m no he man hey hink I am a home
Oh, no, no, no
I’m a Ocke Man
Ocke Man, buning ou hi fue up hee alone

And I hink i gonna be a long, long ime …

Mika Hannula, Ocke Man (Oulipo Version, Slandering, Taking Out R, S & T)

The project was funded and supported by:
Axel Obiger and Art Promotion Center Finland, Ömür Güldas, Christian F. Siege, Philipp Lindner, Manuel Trummer, Arne Braun