Sonja Donner: Summer Room

Exhibition opening on Thursday, June 9. Closed during Midsummer, June 24–25, 2022.

Sonja Donner: Summer Room

In this room – I go with wavering feet – the floor is wet –
gleaming with soap – and my made-up eyes – smudged of waiting –
Who?
Who is there?
– here – we have our own belonging –
we come in – to the room, that is like a dim stage
– it is to us – a resting place
and a shared ordeal
– it is nothing like before –
it is pure, entire sweetness –

In Summer room a figure is trying to tell again a story, that has been told to her a long time ago. The story is a strange, fleeting mixture of the hopes, loves and sorrows of those who have told it. The figure senses, that the best way to understand the story is to organize a celebration. The celebration becomes a vehicle and a spell, with which the figure hopes to reveal her own destiny, too, and to connect all the unclear, disconnected memories and teachings. Her mission proves, after all, to be a complicated one – and a mess follows.

About the artist

Sonja Donner (b. 1994) is an artist based in Helsinki. Donner’s practice combines everyday work, cooking and cleaning, with writing and visual, material storytelling. In the works the attention is drawn toward relationships, emotions and spaces that emerge, when people and things gather together. In 2022, in their series “Something happens all the time, and it’s a quiet song” and “Summer room” Donner has examined social structures and emotions connected to the concepts of celebration and gifts.

Donner has participated in many group exhibitions in Helsinki and Berlin. In year 2020 Rooftop Press published Donner’s photo- and text-based book A lamp lit a room on a night of a kind. A tree has fallen, now there is a hut. At the moment Donner is finishing their master’s studies in the department of sculpture in the Academy of Fine Arts. Summer room is Donner’s first solo show.

Contact

IG @sonjadonner