Valentina Gelain’s artistic research revolves around emotional-visual analysis, investigating on different levels the psychic motions and their possible representations. Depicting what is (apparently) not visible, using narratives and contexts full of meaning, studded with symbolism.

A moment of analysis and confrontation, starting from the own mental sphere and projecting it outward onto the surrounding landscape and its characteristics. The artist observed and explored the territories of Ostrobothnia and filmed mainly during the spring to find the desired nuances, tones and instants explicitly anticipated by the title.

​

 

Poem 2

'Drop by drop...

in my nest and prison

we are islands

close, on our own

part of the same thing

sinking towards the origin

decomposing and recomposing

in fluid metamorphosis

will be imbued catharsis'

 

Poem 1

'The membrane is peeling away.
The reflection drips and everything seems to lose consistency,
mixing in a moment that appears eternal.
Contemplating in a static wandering motion,
I find myself looking at someone who was me,
in a meditative elsewhere, right here:
between fragments of the past, and waves of the present…
… shrouded in grey.'

​

​

​

​

 

The sound for the artwork was obtained by alternating and combining the verses of the two poems, resulting in a third one. In collaboration with Stefan Backas & Annika Sillander (narrator).

​​

The project and art film highlights how we can relate emotionally to the environment to express our inner mental and emotive states. Discovering dimensions that reverberate in nature, and intimate projections that reveal themselves in existential motions and mindscapes.
When the familiar embodies the nest-prison and the connections seem to dissolve... but they are simply expanding and corporeity becomes an illusion.

Almost visual poetry that wanders through fragments of mind connected to apathy, the inability to act, the difficulty of self-relating and dissociation. Depressive unfolding apparently manifesting in a stuckness moment, following the plots of the psyche in which it’s common to get lost, but they merely anticipate a moment of analysis and confrontation.

A call of still imperceptible introspective metamorphoses that lead to the catharsis of being, urging to expand towards an ever-evolving symbiotic rediscovery and growth.

The Grey Hour is an introspective encounter and needed dialogue, played with shades of grey and paradoxically with beauty and harmony, wishing to investigate and reflect on mental dynamics still difficult to recognize, cope with and introject.

 

The project is one of the artist's most recent multidisciplinary art production and its body of work includes: video art, photography, performance, crafting, installation and poetry.

 

Info about film:

Lgth: 9min 33sec
Credits: Direction - Valentina Gelain | Camera operator - Jukka Rajala, Bekim Hasaj | Editing - Valentina Gelain, professional advice Jukka Rajala | Sound/Music - Stefan Backas | Assistant - Bekim Hasaj
Sponsors & Partners: Svensk-Österbottniska Samfundet, Svenska Kulturfonden | Malakta kb & Malakta Films ltd

​

The art film/project is funded by Svensk-Österbottniska Samfundet, Svenska Kulturfonden & Arts Promotion Centre Finland-Taike.
Thank you to Malakta for the technical support.