EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art

Jeannette Ehlers’ hypnotic video work Black Bullets now on display at Touch exhibition

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The three-part media art series of the Touch exhibition continues with Jeannette Ehlers’ impressive Black Bullets. The series of media works has been curated from works of the Saastamoinen Foundation Art Collection that deal with the human effects of war on individuals, communities and culture during different eras and across the world. Ehlers’ video work Black Bullets is an homage to the Haitian revolution, and a reminder that the history of slavery is not just the past. The work is on display at EMMA’s media space from 10 May to 14 August 2022.
Jeannette Ehlers: Black Bullets, 2012. Video still. The Saastamoinen Foundation Art Collection / EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art.
Jeannette Ehlers: Black Bullets, 2012. Video still. The Saastamoinen Foundation Art Collection / EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art.

Black Bullets is an homage to the Haitian revolution of 1791. On the black-and-white video work, dark human figures walk in a line across the video nonstop to the beat of a drone-like soundscape. As they walk, the figures gradually merge into their reflections and finally disappear into the horizon. The work has been filmed against the Haitian sky on a mountain-top fortalso known as a symbol for the emancipation from slavery. The fort was built by the first black Haitian monarch Henri Christophe, after the revolution at the start of the 19th century to defend the independent Haiti against the French.

“Jeannette Ehlers’ Black Bullets is a hypnotic and minimalist piece, whichhas a powerful influence beyond its historical starting points. Themes of power dynamics and the battle against oppression strongly link the work to this day,” describes Laura Kokkonen, curator of the Touch exhibition.

Jeannette Ehlers (b. 1973) is a Danish-Trinidadian artist known for utilising image manipulation and her own body to address memory, structures of racism and colonialism in her works. Black Bullets is a reminder of the slaveryin Haitipracticed by colonial France,known as one of the cruelest periods of forced labour. The Haitian revolution is the only successful revolution by enslaved Africans in history and set the scene for Haiti’s independence in 1804. In her work, Ehlers highlights that history is not the past – colonialism can still be seen through the distribution of power and resources, both globally and in the Nordics.

Black Bullets is the second work in the media artseries as a part of Listening to Silenceof the Touch exhibition, which opened in autumn 2021. The works of the section explore the different dimensions of humans’ inner world, including past events, traumas and ways of processing them. After Black Bullets, the series welcomes its final work in the autumn, The Fantastic by Maija Blåfield.

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Jeannette Ehlers: Black Bullets, 2012. Video still. The Saastamoinen Foundation Art Collection / EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art.
Jeannette Ehlers: Black Bullets, 2012. Video still. The Saastamoinen Foundation Art Collection / EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art.
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Jeannette Ehlers: Black Bullets, 2012. The Saastamoinen Foundation Art Collection / EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art. © Paula Virta / EMMA.
Jeannette Ehlers: Black Bullets, 2012. The Saastamoinen Foundation Art Collection / EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art. © Paula Virta / EMMA.
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EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art
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02100 Espoo

http://www.emmamuseum.fi

EMMA – Espoon modernin taiteen museon kokoelma- ja näyttelytoiminta profiloituu kotimaiseen ja kansainväliseen modernismiin, nykytaiteeseen sekä designiin. EMMA sijaitsee Espoon Tapiolassa, professori Aarno Ruusuvuoren suunnittelemassa betoniarkkitehtuuria edustavassa Näyttelykeskus WeeGeessä. Näyttelytilat ovat pinta-alaltaan Suomen suurimmat, ja pelkistetty moderni arkkitehtuuri tukee EMMAn, Saastamoisen säätiön ja Tapio Wirkkala Rut Bryk Säätiön kokoelmien sekä vaihtuvien näyttelyiden kokemuksellista esittämistä. Tervetuloa!

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