Laituri 6, Quay 6
by Jaakko Niemelä is an installation constructed from scaffolding that greets visitors as they arrive on the ferry from mainland Helsinki and disembark at the northern quay of Vallisaari Island. Climate change has drastically accelerated alarming phenomena such as the melting of Greenland’s northern ice sheet: if this glacier were to vanish completely, it would cause global sea levels to rise about six metres, roughly the same height as Niemelä’s bright-red wooden structure, which has approximately the same base dimensions as Vallisaari’s old stone quay. The water dripping down the red scaffolding creates the illusion of something leaking. The structure of the installation illustrates mutual interdependency: its various parts support each other – if one were removed, the entire tower would collapse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KekSwm_G3PQ
Vallisaari, Helsinki Biennaali
2021
