Elina Juopperi

At the Saari Residence, I will return to drawing. I will use the flood of images on the Internet as my source material, focusing in particular on the landscape and the images provided by map and satellite services. I will travel on the Internet. In my work, I’m interested in the pain points of society, and this way of thinking follows with me and gets reflected in my drawings. I’m particularly interested in breaking points, or points where a seemingly peaceful landscape is, in reality, a stage for something destructive or questionable or for a conflict of some kind, the source of the conflict or where the landscape has been dramatically moulded to meet the narrow-minded needs of humans. I try to sketch out the traces, consequences or open questions that we leave behind in the landscape, nature or in society. The flood of information on the Internet is often contradictory, noisy; I don’t expect to create a straightforward path leading to a clear analysis in my drawings. I will mix the footage I print out from the Internet with my drawings. I will experiment.

Elina Juopperi is an artist from Northern Finland. They studied visual arts at the Paris Cergy National Graduate School of Art in France, graduating with a master’s degree in art, i.e. a DNSEP diploma, in 2005.

Juopperi considers themself as a documentary artist. In their works, they deal with issues such as nature, culture and world news, often interweaving they themes together into works whose message, instead of being preachy, leaves room for the viewer’s experience. Juopperi uses several techniques in their work, including photography, video, drawing, collecting and installation. Their works have been shown, for example, in Finland in the Sámi Museum and Nature Centre Siida in Inari, Korundi in Rovaniemi and Kajaani Art Museum, as well as in la Galerie Noisy-le-sec in France, Laboratorio Arte Alameda in Mexico, Lesjöfors Museum in Sweden and Arte Actual Flacso in Quito, Ecuador. Juopperi’s work has been made possible by grants they has received from Kone Foundation, the Arts Promotion Centre Finland, the Finnish Cultural Foundation and the Alfred Kordelin Foundation, etc.