MEAS (Mari Sydänmaanlakka, b. 1984) graduated as a visual artist from Tampere in 2010 and has been actively involved in the fields of art and salutogenic well-being. She lives and works in Pikkala, Finland, surrounded by cliffs, forests, and bodies of water. Her works have been exhibited primarily in Finland and elsewhere in Europe. Her severe epilepsy gives her a fearless approach and perspective on what is real and important. She is a board member of the Helsinki Artists’ Association and a founding member of the art collectives 3/11, HeartCore Ry, and Rihmastoryhmä. She is also a member of MUU, Yö Ry, and Meän Periferia, as one of the few performance artists in these groups. In addition to her main profession, she writes and studies the path of a healer, incorporating nature and herbal remedies into her healing practices. MEAS is a defender of justice and truth, and her works prompt us to examine the metacognitive level of our existence. An important part of her art consists of in-depth conversations with those who experience her works.
MEAS unearths the truth from beneath all layers, from the social to the spiritual. She uses recycled and found materials—which can be found everywhere—and transforms them through alchemy. For nearly a decade, she has focused particularly on VHS tapes, and next year she will publish a book titled “Truth Saga,” which brings together all her works created with VHS tapes into a single collection.
As an artist, she sees herself in the role of a researcher and finds herself unintentionally entangled in a network of various academic disciplines, collaborating with physicists and legal scholars, among others. His shamanic worldview is deeply connected to nature; he collaborates with its spirits and organically blends all of the aforementioned elements together. MEAS is a multidisciplinary artist, but primarily uses his body as his main medium, creating participatory performances that are both physical and spiritual. During her performances, MEAS describes being in a trance-like state where the ego dissolves into the ether. Many of her performances often leave a physical trace in the form of an installation. Her environmental works can also be found in nature throughout Finland using coordinates. Next, her works will be on view at the HAA Gallery, the Suomenlinna Fortress in Helsinki, and in Riga, Latvia.