Raija Jokinen: Recollections
Häme Castle, Hämeenlinna, FL
17.05. — 20.10.2024

The works by textile artist Raija Jokinen hover between fragility and transience. The intangible, gossamer human figures are a picturesque piece of textile art, made from natural coloured and dyed linen fibre, flax, with a technique she developed over 30 years ago. She kind of draws and paints with fibers and use machine embroidery to attach fibers to each other. In her artistic identity, textile and visual arts merge and her works can be described as converging of paintings, sculptures, graphics and textiles.

Raija is looking for analogies to the material and immaterial structures of our mind and surroundings. She describes our inner world and the events that change how we feel and prune away the background. Her works emphasize the two extremes of human nature – fragility and resilience.

The exhibition in about 700 years old castle reflects also history and the passage of time. In Raija’s works you can find references to the use of flax some thousands of years ago and also to the future in a form of AI generated images reflected on flax. Flax has played also an important role among the materials used in Häme castle and in the agriculture and merchandise in Häme area. In the 18th century, it was used to pay taxes, and in the 19th century, when Häme Castle served as a women’s prison, the prisoners used it to make linen textiles. To picture the local history of flax, the exhibition displays items from the collections of the National Museum of Finland, which were used by the female prisoners of Häme Castle to make linen and a video about flax processing in Häme area.

More information: https://www.kansallismuseo.fi/en/exhibitions/muistikuvia-raija-jokisen-tekstiiliteoksia

Artist's website: www.raijajokinen.fi