Satu-Minna Suorajärvi

Bleaching

Solo exhibition, 2025

Gallery Katariina, Helsinki, Finland

The skull has long been a permanent symbol in art, representing death. For me, the metaphor for the dying of marine species in the wake of environmental catastrophe is coral that has lost its color. I have used 3D printed porcelain as the medium for these works. Its translucent white color evokes a lifeless seabed, reflecting the stark reality of coral bleaching.

Today, 3D printed coral structures are used to create habitats for coral species, aiming to restore damaged reefs and maybe too late. An artificial, 3D printed coral reef has the potential to prevent species extinction while we work toward mitigating climate change. In my creative process, I employ growth algorithms that mimic organic forms—algorithms used in design, architecture, and urban planning.

Loss of Small Details

Solo exhibition, 2019

Kunsthalle Turku, Finland

The starting point for the exhibition The Loss of Small Details was a 3D scanning process carried out in a 100-year-old house. I began scanning my relative’s old sumer home somewhat spontaneously, and the results were far from perfect. The rooms and objects appeared only in fragments, and the 3D models were riddled with gaps.

Despite this—or perhaps because of it—I found the incomplete scans to be an ideal foundation for my work. I felt no urge to correct their imperfections. The glitches and omissions produced by new technologies become a metaphor for the fragility and impermanence of life and memory itself.

Loss of Small Details, video, 4 min 28 s

Year: 2018

Video: 3D scans, 3D modeling, VR editing, animation and music by Satu-Minna Suorajärvi

From the 3D models of the old house I scanned, I have built a VR (virtual reality) world. The 3D scanned rooms and the soundscape captured in family videos float in space like memories in the mind. The spaces, with their colors, lights, and sounds, appear and then disappear again, and nothing is permanent.

Interrupted continuum

Solo exhibition, 2016

GalleriaKONE, Hämeenlinna, Finland

Into the shapes of 3d printed sculptures have been recorded human movements. SSilhouette lines change into each other (e.g. from a child to an adult), and at the same time the outlines of the sculpture are drawn. The sculptures are fragments or condensations of time. As the silhouette lines build forms, various breaks, twists, collisions occur, and I call the resulting forms manifestations of an interrupted continuum.

Passage

Solo exhibition, 2014

Sculptor Gallery, Helsinki, Finland

Using 3D modeling softwares, I can create forms that would be difficult for me to make by hand. I find the subjects for my sculptures in everyday life: I photograph and sketch people, alter contours of their silhouettes, and then transform these shapes into 3D modelled sculptures. This process becomes passage through unexpected forms.

Disciplinary Institution

Solo exhibition, 2012

Mältinranta Art Center, Tampere, Finland

My artworks are related to structures of phenomenons and objects. In Diciplinary Institution exhibition I have expanded my interest to focus to the architecture of power. I have taken Michel Foucault's book Discipline and Punish as an starting point for my artworks. The book describes the history of closed institutions (mental hospitals, prisons and educational institutions) and the development of their architecture. I have chosen a nuclear power plant as the subject of the closed institution because it represents a space whose existence is strictly controlled.

Edit Curves

Solo exhibition, 2012

Jetty Barracks Gallery, Helsinki, Finland

Unconscious

Group exhibition, 2010

Staffas, Porvoo, Finland

Materials: Installation made by plastic optical fiber and ready-made objects

Light Source

Solo exhibition, 2009

Gallery Huuto, Helsinki

Material: Polyester resin, silicone and plastic optical fibers

Shooting Portrait

Ceramic workshop group exhibition, 2009

Kaiku gallery, The Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, Finland

Black Perspective

Solo exhibition, 2007

Kasarmikatu Gallery of The Academy of Fine Arts, Finland

The central idea of my exhibition is inspired by the opening line of Dante’s Divine Comedy: "Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark."

Through installations, sculptures, and animations, I have sought to create a constellation of works that invites the viewer to move from the realm of the conscious self into the unconscious — to become lost in the territories of shadows and darkness. It takes a moment for the eyes to adjust, but soon even the dark begins to reveal its shapes. Darkness is a mirror in which we must confront our strongest emotions, our fears, desires, and fantasies.

I hope the viewer leaves with a sense of mystery — a feeling that something has opened, yet remains unattainable. Rather than offering answers, I offer angles from which new vistas and new questions may emerge. Ideally, the viewer is left with a sense of strangeness, a haunting awareness that art cannot be explained away with words.