Jussi Niskanen & Sakari Tervo: Kämpillä (Indoors)

16th september 2016

Hannu, Markku, Jussi and Sakari are having a Flow Festival pre-party at Hermanni’s place. Hannu is telling Jussi a story about Markku’s second cousin Sami’s brother Viljami, but Jussi isn’t listening. Sakari, while cutting some carrots julienne style, is concentrating on Hannu’s story with one ear, with the other ear focused on the potato sauce. The doorbell has been ringing steadily without a single reaction from anyone.

Hermanni’s extendable wood-imitation dining table, which used to belong to Vesa’s parents, is graced with red and yellow cherry tomatoes, cream-coloured chanterelle pasta, green Pall Mall smokes, beer, summer rolls wrapped in white rice paper and the novel “Ikiyö”, or “Pedon syleily” by the author Ilkka Remes.

Hannu’s gossips about the various incidents that have occurred at the coffee roastery of Markku’s second cousin Sami’s brother Viljami are amusing to Sakari, a sort of coffee enthusiast himself. Sakari keeps repeating Hannu’s words, as if to show himself as a turning wheel in the story’s machinery. Jussi, bored with such gossip, starts up a conversation about Midsummer plans. Everyone hopes for good weather.

Hermanni’s apartment houses the following collection of plants: a 31-metre yucca, two money trees measuring about 1.5 metres in height, seven assorted avocado trees ranging from three to seven metres high, several jade plant cuttings in various conditions, as well as one fiddle-leaf fig that has reached a height of fifty metres. This fig is the crown jewel in Hermanni’s plant collection, a birthday gift from his godfather Sebastian seventy years ago.

Markku is playing Morrissey on his iPad, while Sakari is taking care of French toast for dessert. In a moment, the delicious dessert sweeps everyone off their feet. The best Flow of all time is about to start.

Jussi Niskanen (b. 1984) graduated from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 2014. Sakari Tervo (b. 1985) graduated from the Academy in 2011. Tervo is a member of the working group at Sorbus Gallery, as well as a part of the Anna Breu artist collective.