Esplanade Park stage
Antti Pussinen & Martta-Kaisa Virta: Medicine City

Address: Pohjoisesplanadi 1

A large, illuminated installation surprises the viewer. At first it seems like a beautiful and mesmerising night-time cityscape, but the realisation of the buildings' materials takes the artwork's themes to deeper levels. Medicine City is made of tens of thousands of empty aluminium medicine packages. Each medicine package has been broken in a different way, making each window look different.

The artwork is about the medicalisation of our society. Cities can also be seen as a medicine for loneliness and light as a medicine against fear. A person can be found behind the light at each window in a dark city. Presented on the Esplanade Park stage, this work will resemble a miniature city in the midst of a real one.

An estimated 22,000 medicine packages were used for the work. Two artists took six months to create it.

Medicine City has been presented on previous occasions at the Tampere Art Museum, the SUOMESTA gallery in Berlin and the Kuopio Art Museum. It was also featured as part of the Lux Helsinki Lux IN exhibition at the Cable Factory in 2014. 

Photo: Marina Ekroos

Esitysaika: 5 pm – 10 pm

Antti Pussinen (b. 1984, Tampere) is a visual and sound artist who is interested in a variety of environments and their effect on people. Through his art, Pussinen strives to create environments that affect the viewer through his or her emotions, memories and associations. For Pussinen, the city environment in particular is a fascinating testing ground of humanity and tolerance. In a city, people are forced to live side by side and cannot hide among like-minded friends.

Martta-Kaisa Virta (b. 1984, Paimio) is an artist and illustrator. Her art consists of a flowing stream of consciousness, in which one artistic solution leads to another. She observes the world by drawing: a pen, felt tip and ink bottle become an extension of her hand.

Takaisin ylös