Black Box Genesis - Fine/Visual Arts, Cultural Events, Projects & Collaborations by B. Hasaj & V. Gelain
'What is left |in the| Temple of memory' 2025-2026
Interdisciplinary project based on community research, video art and spatial installations in disused places, with focus in rural areas, and natural settings
This interdisciplinary project is based on community research and site-specific installations in abandoned premises and natural landscapes, investigate dynamics-phenomena related to memory, time and their relationship, perception, nature.
The research, planning and implementation related to the project is scheduled during 2025-2026, in the rural areas of Ostrobothnia. The main artistic production is focused on the design and realization of large-scale spatial installations, including immersive and interactive ones, which will be open to the public through display events.
The groundwork includes the involvement of locals connected to these locations through open dialogue interviews, written material and recordings with different mediums of objects, places, people and whatnot. The collection of inspirational material will also take place on a national and international scale, as an archival action.
The archive is intended to obtain material for the main artworks, for documentation with the focus on preserving, exploring and interconnecting stories that are about to fade away, investigating and translating them into active exchange and salient insights to stir and spur timeless introspective dynamics in our contemporaneity.
The final art will be realised and achieved by embracing interdisciplinarity in the visual arts, also integrating words art, sound art, media art and performance art; all inextricably linked to space and time.
In the first site-specific installation and exhibition concept 'The Hidden Spots' the public will have to interact with an apparently bare, empty space, but one that actually conceals memories, stories, that for some reason have now fallen into oblivion.
The artistic corpus of the project also includes artworks to be displayed in more traditional exhibition spaces, such as galleries and museums. One example is the video art piece of the same name, in which the community and the public will be involved through the sharing of memories.
The project 'What is Left in the Temple of Memory' underlines the relationship between time and memory, the human perception and alteration, (our) precariousness; the traces left behind that wear out quickly and those that endure, history that fades and evaporates by repeating itself; what was so important and what is now… linked to the personal, human and transcendental dimension. Perceive differently the possible values of impermanence in perpetual awareness.
From this universal perspective, as a counterbalance, attention is paid and value is given to sharing existences that bring us back to our present, to our surroundings.
‘Home’ as a body… as symbol of us. Intimacy and individuality, but also connective structures to the community and collectively. Personal memories that belong to us, and reminiscences imprinted unaware within us.
Disused, abandoned, forgotten places what do they whisper… what do they exude?
What can and should we hear, do not forget? And what inevitably falls into oblivion, crystallizing in remote places of our unconscious? How tied are we to the material, to the tangible? How do the traces around us transform themselves, how do we perceive them, and what do they transmit to us? Why do we want to passively take refuge, but often escape from memory and estrange ourselves from our history? What do we hold, freeze, warp, and what should we really take from this unstoppable change and empty song of the phoenix… what could we become?
These are some of the questions the project wants to investigate and find a plural artistic expression to address and represent them through reflective, evocative experiences of individual poetics and collective imagination.
In later stages of the project, the topics will also cover landscape and the environment, analysing our awareness and (altered) perception of the territory and its changes, as well as the idea of ´home´ and the construct of belonging.
The art project is supported by Arts Promotion Centre-Taike.
Partner and collaborators: Vaasa City Museums, Architect Ruusa Viljanen Rossi-Tidorum, Regional Dance Center in Ostrobothnia, Elokuvakeskus Botnia ry, more to be announced.
Communication collaborators: City of Nykarleby/Uusikaarlepyy, Korsnäs Municipality, Malax Municipality, Art in Malakta rf, more to be announced.
The Video Art Work
The project includes a video art work of the same name that lies somewhere between artistic production and archive-related research.
In addition to interviews, the intention is to further involve the community and the public, connecting and asking them to contribute in the artistic production by answering the following question:
If you have to choose an object and a situation, what would you identify ´memory´and ´time´with?
The answer is subjective and can also be related to personal memories. If you like to share something, please write an email to team@blackboxgenesis.com or a message to Valentina +358 452596546.
The Archive
´Would ask the walls if I could / Mirroring through the glimmers / Lay in the middle of the door /
But I do not speak there yet / Whispers are barely heard / Maybe you can tell for this time, for now´
In the research phase, the project includes exchange with the local community through open dialogue interviews, photographic-written documentation and donated material related to the topics discussed. Through disused dwellings and the landscape, the artists investigate dynamics-phenomena related to memory, time and their relationship, perception, nature.
The first part of the project will focus on interviewing people who have disused and abandoned houses, premises, structures, or who have a direct connection with the latter. Other peculiar contexts may be of interest.
The intention of the archive is not only to collect, but also to carve out moments of individual exchange and reflection, which in the final work will acquire a collective dimension.
If you are interested in being part of the ´What is Left in the Temple of Memory´ archive and sharing with artists Bekim Hasaj and Valentina Gelain memories and thoughts regarding the above issues, please write to this email team@blackboxgenesis.com with the subject line ´Archive-Call´.
NB. The people involved in the archive can decide how the data and material collected is treated in relation to the art project by signing a document before the interview. Interviews are generally recorded, but strictly confidential.
We are looking for...
Also sought is a modestly sized disused location that can host the site-specific and immersive-interactive installation ´The Hidden Sposts´ in 2025.
In short, the whole house becomes a work of art. Artists will make targeted interventions and modifications, including and concealing multidisciplinary art in the environment.
Due to the nature of the installation, it will be necessary to work on site and make modifications to the premises in question. Modifications are to be discussed and agreed upon in advance.
A display event open to the public will be organized for one week in September 2025. Artists will take care of implementation, logistical, technical and organizational aspects.
It is possible to contribute as a project partner and promoter of art and cultural activities by donating the use of the premises; a fee to be determined in advance will be paid.
If you are interested in being part of the project by allowing the use of your property, or would like more information, please contact us at team@blackboxgenesis.com with the subject ´House for Installation and Event´.
Thank you very much!
The call to participate in the archive in Swedish & Finnish on Museums of Vaasa website!
Most of the photographs are from the project archive--courtesy of Ruusa Viljanen Rossi, Gunnar Bäckman, Margereta Sillander, Ulrika Lindholm and Jenni Lindholm.
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