Juha Mäki-Jussila

Juha Mäki-Jussila’s short movies fit somewhere in between documentary and visual art. His works have been showcased at over 200 film and video festivals. In 2013, he received a special mention from the jury at two film festivals (BerwickFilmFestival UK and Helsinki Short Film Festival) for his short film Suddenly Last Summer. Festival distribution is conducted through AV-arkki. Mäki-Jussila’s work has also been showcased at art galleries and museums.

Juha Mäki-Jussila (b. 1967) lives and works in Karkkila, Finland. His works utilize moving images and vary from videos to installations. They are characterised by a strange interest in human behavior. References toward the history of motion picture can also be found in his approach. In recent works, Mäki-Jussila has applied stop motion animation techniques in order to create the “movement of illusion,” rather than the illusion of movement. Mäki-Jussila graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki in 1997 and has since participated in several exhibitions and video festivals in Finland and abroad.

At the Saari Residence, I will be working on two video works.

Poor Man Statues

The events of the video I am currently working on take place in Southern Ostrobothnia where I was born. The work combines the tale of the prodigal son and the poor man statue traditions of Southern Ostrobothnia. The main character of the story, whom I will be constructing at the Saari Residence, will also encounter some of his ancestors (these scenes will feature real poor man statues). (Parts of the film will be shot in a studio at the Saari Residence using the blue screen technique so that the background can be replaced with archive material, for example.)

The Foundry

I was granted permission to use the Högfors foundry’s (situated in Karkkila, Finland) photo archive which constitutes approximately 3000 scanned pictures from the factory during 1910 to 1940. I’ve done some preliminary video experimentation with the pictures in which the perspective’s vanishing point is situated in the middle. The pictures portray factory workers at different stages of the production line. I’ve edited consecutive photos so that one second of moving picture is formed from 12 different photographs (by adapting the stop motion animation technique). The arrangement in the photos is similar in each but their content varies.

The result was an interesting sequence of moving picture that gave an impression of the nature of the industrial revolution, production line work and repetitive actions.

My project is closely related to the prehistory of cinematic techniques. The light and film studies of human movement by the gentlemen Muybridge, Marey and Demeny (1890–) served the needs of taylorism ie. of the most efficient production line possible.

I will apply these “visuals” to the stories of contemporary workers; they (those that are still alive) still meet up every summer in Karkkila to remember days gone by.

I aim to create a video work that updates the past into the present, and in bringing 1920s realism to the forefront, is a tribute to the factory’s workers.