Artist interview: Ananya Tanttu

Ananya Tanttu’s first exhibition Fragments (Of You and I) was in Unknown Cargo 30.5.–16.6.2013. She tells us how it felt to work anonymously and hold her first exhibition.

I was graduating from high school the same weekend that my exhibition at Unknown Cargo was to open, and I could not have asked for anything more than to have my first solo exhibition be an anonymous one. This gave me not only freedom and courage, but also the challenge to create and display something without the label of “a nineteen-year old female art student”. It was all very new to me, so it was definitely a learning experience in every way.

There was a great contrast between the visuals in my work, which some would describe as very romantic, and the roughness of the Unknown Cargo space in Teurastamo (the Abattoir). It was interesting to place the videos and the photographs into that space; it was like creating a narrative not only amongst the works, but also between the individual pieces and aspects of the very characteristic surfaces, rooms and spatial dimensions.

One of the most insightful aspects of the entire experience was having had the chance to observe the behaviour and reactions of exhibition visitors, without them knowing that I was the artist.

The collaboration with Unknown Cargo taught me so much, which I will always be grateful for. My wish is to continue working with and expressing whatever feels intuitively right and relevant to me, hopefully only with more strength, understanding and subtlety.