Nestori Syrjälä: Waiting for the Next Renaissance

Things tend to grow and develop logically. The collapse is usually sudden and unexpected, taking place in ways that defy the imagination. Stadiums became dumping grounds after the fall of the Roman Empire. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, people turned Christmas trees into coat racks.

What if robotics and artificial intelligence cannot be perfected before ecological crises cause fossil-fueled capitalism to crumble and shatter the material foundation of technological development? The end of a world is the beginning of another world.

Nestori Syrjälä has studied the crisis between people and the environment in his works. Waiting for the Next Renaissance features objects and monuments of people in a post-transformation world – new original peoples.

Stela (I–VII) is a series of works dealing with trauma and grief, with quotes from veterans of the First World War, the poet Dante Alighieri and the leading climate scientists of the world. In addition, the exhibition features snow, Saharan sand, SD memory cards, variations of Inuit masks, sauna stones and stormproof matches, among other elements.

Nestori Syrjälä (b. 1983) focuses on themes related to ecological crises, the Anthropocene and alternative futures, working with various media, from installation art to video. His work Running Man won the shared first prize in the Kiasma Art Competition in March 2016. Syrjälä has studied at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts and the Royal Institute of Art of Sweden. He is a member of the Mustarinda Association.