Risto Puurunen - Shadows in the Air

Interactive 3D Shadow Theatre

Shadows in the Air is an immersive and participatory 3D shadow theatre installation that takes shape within the gallery space. Using vintage analogue 3D glasses, visitors encounter expanding, animated shadows that respond to movement in real time. The work invites playful interaction through shadow play and subtle sound improvisation on piano strings.

The installation emerges from a slow, hands-on process of construction and experimentation with light, projection, and shadow. Its raw, tactile aesthetic draws inspiration from early cinematic experiments and pre-cinematic animation devices such as zoetropes, bridging historical optical play with contemporary spatial experience.

Risto Puurunen is a Finnish self-taught musician and visual artist whose practice spans immersive installations, experimental sound, and invented light-based techniques. He is known for his work with “stereolight,” shadows, and 3D optics, as well as for his long-standing role in the internationally performing group Cleaning Women. He is also a key figure in the Haihatus Art Centre.

Photo by Hannu Iso-Oja

Anders Bergman & Suvi Parrilla
- VARGFRÅN: Kurbits

Kurbits was originally created in collaboration with KONE Elevators as a visual work for an elevator descending into the underground depths of the Tytyri Experience Mine. Drawing from Dalecarlian folk art, the kurbits motif appears as a fantastical, twisting plant—an organic symbol of growth, fertility, and the life force of nature, with visual echoes of the tree of life.

The work’s soundscape weaves together incantatory wolf-protection chants and runic song, blending Finnish and Swedish language traditions and exploring transformation between human, child, and wolf. Against the backdrop of contemporary debates on wolf protection and hunting in the Nordic countries, Kurbits engages with the contested identity of the wolf—feared, rejected, sacred, and symbolic—while pointing toward shared cultural ground across borders.

Vargfrån is a multidisciplinary project by Anders Bergman and Suvi Parrilla, bringing contemporary art into dialogue with folk tradition, belief systems, and Nordic wolf politics.