Vertere

In Vertere Riikka Anttonen takes a step further and deeper into the world of ideas, thoughts and questions that have surfaced during previous processes. The work on the exhibition has been rooted in queer experiences and exploring ways of illuminating, extending and opening up the boundaries that spring up around norms and normative thinking. In order to make room and to create a basis for working with queer issues, Anttonen adopts an extended time perspective and uses historical examples. Much of the inspiration and visual expression here is drawn from the culture of ancient Rome. The exhibition’s title, Vertere, is Latin for “to turn, twist or reverse” something. It takes its starting point in the Roman poet Ovid’s lyrical work Metamorphoses, the various narrators’ employing leitmotifs that each revolve around some sort of transformation. The exhibition consists of a series of sculptures shaped like spinning tops with surfaces covered in relief patterns and marble mosaic. In previous exhibitions, Anttonen has made site-specific installations that also comment on the exhibition space and its architecture. Vertere is a step away from that. Here Anttonen disrupts and is less attentive to the room’s dictates. The sculptures have been allowed to come about free of the room’s often tone-setting grip and influence. Vertere makes its entrance in the guise of a more unpredictable, chaotic character. The main concept behind the design of the sculptures is the spinning top. Spinning tops are one of our oldest toys and have been found in archaeological excavations around the world. In different cultures their history is charged with a fascinating mystery and spiritual power. They have not only been children’s toys – in ancient Rome spinning tops were used by adults in gambling and fortune telling. A stationary spinning top rarely feels passive, instead it seems to anticipate an interaction. Like dice, spinning tops carry an alluring charge filled with potential for spontaneous play with fate. The motifs in the marble mosaics adorning the surfaces of the sculptures are directly inspired by Metamorphoses, in which the protagonists are transformed, changing shape and appearance between animal, plant and matter. Ovid emphasizes the idea that the only constant is change itself, that the world is a dynamic place – and we along with it. The themes of Anttonen’s sculptures can also be seen as being purely symbolic, with the spinning top’s state of equilibrium actually residing in the movement itself, in the rotation that keeps its mass upright. In Vertere Anttonen captures the idea of movement and change of state as a route to transformation. Change opens up new situations, perspectives and insights. The effect of the movement becomes an active counterforce to the unnaturally static and cozy. Norms begin to appear as temporary doldrums in the stream. This brings to mind Octavia E. Butler’s novel Parable of the Sower, where she addresses ecological, social and existential issues, highlighting the individual’s position, responsibility and ability to influence and navigate the course of nature and life, where even the tiniest action matters. Butler opens the book with: “All that you touch, you change. All that you change, changes you. The only lasting truth is change.” That quotation takes us back to Anttonen’s work and to Vertere, both centred on transformation. We find ourselves in a zone where entropy begins to come into play; perhaps seeing identity, both individual and collective, as something that is in a state of disorder, continually rearranging itself and changing shape? Anttonen refers to queer opacity; a queer strategy in which the opaque (non-transparent) is visually present, but remains indefinable. This type of presence both disarms and challenges normative identity categorizations and power structures. That is why Anttonen works to cover the surfaces of the sculptures, thus highlighting what is going on beneath, and the way that queer identity often reveals only a part of itself. Marble mosaic is a visual link to ancient Rome, to a time when queer and trans culture was very widely accepted, even celebrated. Reaching back over the millennia to find traces to identify with is extremely important for many queer people. At the same time, historical examples are an important counterargument to what is, still today, a common assumption, that queer and trans identities are a modern phenomenon.