Simi Ruotsalainen
Basic information
b. 1981, Rovaniemi
Media artist
Residence: Rovaniemi
Contact information
Email: suruotsa@gmail.com
Artist’s Statement
I am media artist, photographer, and independent filmmaker (MA) from Rovaniemi, Finland. I'm also currently working with my doctoral thesis about art activism. In recent years, after global threat images materialized in Europe and world, my artivistic identity has grown even stronger: activism as a method of my artistic work has become not only the content of my art and an attempt to make a difference but also a reflective tool that iteratively develops my thinking. Although in many ways the current global situation is dystopic, my activism has begun to focus above all on the challenges in my own immediate environment (many of which, of course, reflect the general global situation). The environmental challenges in the Northern and Arctic region, such as problems related to the mining industry, land use and the deterioration of the quality of natural fish stocks for example, have been the subjects of my works and forms based on moving images in particular. My northern identity directs my artistic thinking to consider global issues from a local perspective.
Reoccuring themes in my work are related in Northern and Arctic life, environmental issues, gender and equality. I’m also currently working on an eco-fictional comic book about connection between human and trees. Time-based medias, such as video art and art comic, resonate with my thinking the most at this moment, but media has never been the decisive factor in my working process. In English use pronouns they/them.
Reoccuring themes in my work are related in Northern and Arctic life, environmental issues, gender and equality. I’m also currently working on an eco-fictional comic book about connection between human and trees. Time-based medias, such as video art and art comic, resonate with my thinking the most at this moment, but media has never been the decisive factor in my working process. In English use pronouns they/them.
