Sörnäistenlaituri

We’re proud to show the work of the following artists:

Charles Park, United States
Survival
The architectural landscape of Germany continues to evolve as new systems of power replace old regimes. By seeking out derelict buildings and highlighting interior wounds, an unprecedented view of Germany’s historical past is revealed. The deliberate manipulation of these spaces appropriates the forms of collapse in order to invent a new purpose for what appears as urban rubble. The restoration of these unused interior spaces creates communal platforms of sustainable refuge. Obsolescence is a necessity for new construction to occur; each structure is a by-product of building towards a more modern society.

The passing of governments has rendered these edifices in a state of limbo. Thus, creating ownership conflict of these century-old buildings on a privatized level. It was through the time spent in Leipzig that a vision of revitalizing unoccupied buildings materialized in various reconstructive zones. The damage and disrepair were the starting points for these alterations, which took shape with materials such as plastic sheeting, duct tape, and butcher paper. These careful investigations of architectural wounds were not only opportunities to question their past functions, but a way to explore their re-utilization.

Marco Sanges, Italy
Circumstances
Greatly attracted to the cinema and in particular the luminous black and white films of the silent era, Marco Sanges creates photographs in sequence. Every sequence tells a unique, multi-layered story.In this analogue project, Sanges wanted to capture the power of characters, bigger than life being themselves without any restriction or regulation by the government. Instead, they choose to be free revealing the various states of consciousness of the character and exploring the dualities between content and absence, space and surface. Be in a scene, as a scene in a film unfolds into a story

Vitor Queiroz, Portugal
Young Cairo
Judgment comes easy, but sometimes life doesn’t. Taking a stance on quick opinions before trying to understand is a default that comes from the separation and lack of communication between different paths of life, different backgrounds, different futures. But it is precisely the future that can change if we slow down on our judgments and honour the truly rich and remarkable multicultural country Australia is. Young Cairo is a social documentary series, set in Sydney’s Inner West (one of the most highly gentrified areas of a growing city), that looks at the daily life of “Cairo”, a 21-year-old south Sudanese hip-hop artist that, just like everyone else, is immersed in the hustling of daily life, trying his best to be a son, a brother, an uncle, an adult and a professional musician. A look at a world where family and social role models precipitate over each other in a social background that acts as a magnifying glass, revealing the conflicts that teenagers and young adults face nowadays, in all the different shades of us.

Ater Gurin, 21, also known as Cairo to family and friends..
Cairo was born in Egypt, after his family flew from the war in South Sudan and landed in Australia one year later as a refugee. Nowadays, Australia accepts a very limited number of refugees and has detention in the Pacific islands, such as Nauru and Manus. These policies have left very latent the division between society and some ethnic minorities and accentuating the difference between social classes. These new generations that Cairo is part of, are already Australian citizens and the integration is a very delicate and complex subject to be deconstructed in a simplified way.

Claudio Verbano, Germany
Incomplete
While driving through Sicily you can see many houses that remind you of skeletons rather than places to stay. Bridges often end in the middle of nowhere and appear displaced for their usual function. Since 2013 the department for infrastructure in Rome has developed a countrywide statistic that is regularly being updated. In 2015 they registered 868 unfinished public buildings in Italy, all of them financed through public funding and taxpayer monies. Many of the projects were already planned in the 80’s and 90’s. The money came partly from the Cassa del Mezzogiorno and partly from the EU regional development fund. That money increased the hunger of many activists like local municipalities, construction companies and the mafia. Regardless of the extremely increasing sovereign debts and the financial crisis in Italy during the last 10 years, countless streets and bridges were built that end in the clouds of corruption and unclear planning. Thousands of half-finished sportfields, hospitals and schools standing like ghost villages in the wide surrounding.

All these projects have cost and estimated amount of not less than 4 billion Euros. Famous Mafia-expert Roberto Saviano says, it is not more money that will help to increase the situation of the south. The government finally has to help local companies and therefore end the combination of bad payment, corruption, bureaucracy and extortion by mafia-clans. Big money inflows from Rome and the European Union for infrastructure will only increase the influence of the mafia in these areas. For several months I collected information about construction projects in Sicily that were financed by governmental or european funds and that have not yet been accomplished. Because of the very bad construction quality and missing infrastructure all these buildings will never be ready and will never be finished. In total Verbanofound more than 300 buildings and he photographed 100 of them until now.

Seunggu Kim, Republic of Korea
Better Days
South Korea has been developing rapidly over the past 40 years which has caused a lot of social ironies. One of the ironies is working long hours with only a very short break. . Koreans try their best to enjoy their holidays but due to lack of time to travel, they mostly spend their time in the city.  Therefore, the leisure places around Seoul and its suburbs try to present something interesting to entertain their customers with. By doing so, all of the western and Korean cultures are mixed together. The “Better Days” describes Korean spectacles from the way they enjoy their short vacation.