Everyday Play and Bread

Karl Joonas Alamaa’s great-aunt Leili was deported to Siberia with her family, where, separated from the others, she was sent to do forestry work. Once, she scratched her name into the bark of a felled birch tree, and by chance that very log ended up in the workshop where her father was working. It gave him hope that at least one of his daughters was still alive. Inspired by this story, Alamaa has for years interviewed people who, for one reason or another, have been forced to leave their homes, seeking to preserve stories that are often omitted from written history.

Changing one’s homeland is not necessarily easy. Those who leave, as well as those who arrive, are often looked upon with disfavour. In addition, depending on one’s origin and destination, the journey may present various obstacles that often require more luck than anything else to overcome. The stories of Leila and many others show that even in the most impossible circumstances, an act that seems desperate can bear the fragile fruit of hope.

The works shown so far in the exhibition are stark pieces that mark power, structure, and rules. Everyday Play and Bread brings us lives lived day after day in defiance of those rules. In addition to interviews, the installation presents sack-figures sewn from textile scraps and filled with various materials. At the centre stands a game board, with a drawer containing instruction cards and playing pieces made of wood and bread. The aim of the game is simple: read the sentence on the card and stage a response on the board using the figures. The rest of the rules you can invent yourself.