Maritta Nurmi. Eastern Light & Tea for Seven, 2015

RaumArs guest artist Maritta Nurmi, based in the East (Hanoi, Vietnam), will be making her latest site specific installation into an old outhouse (privy) to the address Itäkatu 11 during the annual Lace Week of Rauma. Suitably the street name, which also refers to the East (Finnish itä = east). Maritta Nurmi is happy about the way Rauma people showed their enthusiasm and co-operation by donating lot's of Finnish wallpapers and also introduced several outhouses to the project. However, the artist also found a sad development: the privies have pretty much disappeared amidst the latest renovations of old houses and the barns in the yards.

Maritta Nurmi will be plastering a manifold and colourful collage on the walls of the outhouse. Part of the wallpapers she brought in her suitcase from Hanoi, where the wallpapers are a recent arrival in interior design and immediately got very fashionable. In her installation the Far Eastern wallpapers open up as "windows" into the Asian (mental) landscape. Honouring the local lace tradition and the Rauma Lace Week some lace will also be used.

Besides the old architecture and construction history is Nurmi's focus also on coexistence of cultures. The installation takes shapes the exotic wallpapers and our everyday wallpapers side by side merge to global discussion: how to make the peaceful coexistence possible. The theme is especially actual now when the migration of people and nations for various reasons is increasing.

Maritta Nurmi will be working at Itäkatu 11 from Saturday the 18th onwards for about a week from 10 a.m. until late afternoon. The installation will be open until the Sunday 26th of July. The public is welcomed to follow the proceedings of the work and share their experiences of privies, wallpapers, art and Asia. Residents of the house will have a flea market open during the Lace Week.

Tea for Seven

”My work Tea for Seven is a playful combination of two Eastern traditions, sand mandala and tea ceremony. Exposed to winds and rains it is located between the rocks on the most western island of Rauma archipelago. During weeks of time I collected red, white and black stones with which I then created a tea pot and cups (red ones) and a checkered table cloth (black and white). ”

Maritta Nurmi was also a jury member at the Blue Sea Film Festival Baltic Herring Short Film Competition.

Maritta Nurmi, a visual artist born in Finland, has been based in Hanoi, Vietnam, since 1994. Her artistic practice includes painting and installation. Maritta's background both in Art and in Natural Sciences together with her long term stay in Asia all give a multilayered and multicultural influence into her art. Maritta has also been active as cross-cultural link between the Finnish and Vietnamese cultures.