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Photo reportage from the exhibition ‘Groundhog Day’ at SIC Gallery, Helsinki


Groundhog Day
9.12.2017–21.1.2018
SIC
Tyynenmerenkatu 6 C, Helsinki

Christian Andersson (SE), Nina Beier (DK), Merike Estna (EE), Ceal Floyer (UK), Luca Frei (CH), Gideonsson/Londré (SE), Kaspars Groševs (LV), Barbora Kleinhamplová & Tereza Stejskalová (CZ), Jaakko Pallasvuo (FI), Emily Roysdon (US)

Curator: Andreas Nilsson

Groundhog Day is a 1993 American fantasy-comedy film directed by Harold Ramis, starring Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, and Chris Elliott. It was written by Ramis and Danny Rubin, based on a story by Rubin. Murray plays Phil Connors, an arrogant Pittsburgh TV weatherman who, during an assignment covering the annual Groundhog Day event in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, finds himself caught in a time loop, repeating the same day again and again. After indulging in hedonism and committing suicide numerous times, he begins to re-examine his life and priorities.
(Wikipedia)

The exhibition Groundhog Day travels through time and space. It looks at how repetition, recurring patterns, and nostalgia permeate our domestic life and daily routines but also opens up to new perspectives from the near future. The exhibition deals with both activity and inactivity. A performative aspect is emphasized in choreographic and performance based works, but also in the form of site-specific installations and the visitors’ own encounter with objects, videos, sound, and paintings. Throughout, the act of repetition is dealt with as something in transition, never entirely repeated in its same form. Is repetition even possible, one might ask? And what is left behind – a vague memory, an uncertainess, a new fact? Or is it just another form of killing time?

The exhibition Groundhog Day is an independent sequel in a trilogy of exhibitions curated by Andreas Nilsson, discussing temporality, the relationship between the ephemeral and the permanent, and the intersection between performance based art and visual art. The first exhibition in the series was The Visitors, presented in Võru, Estonia 2015. The third stage – Still no title (Working title) – is planned for Tallinn Art Hall in 2019.

The exhibition is supported by: Danish Art Abroad, Eesti Kulturkapitaal, Finnish Cultural Foundation, Frame Contemporary Art Finland, Iaspis & Nordic Culture Point.

Photography: SIC Gallery, Helsinki