Hydra

I have made few posts that have featured work by my artgroup Hydra. I think it’s good time to make little retrospect/introduction of the group.

The beginning

2011 was the year of my graduation from the Lahti Institute of Fine Arts, we had an amazing class whom with we shared a lot of great memories. There were quite a few of us from the class that stayed in the city after graduation. Five of us along with one who had graduated earlier went looking for a studio space together to save on rent. Having a dedicated space for making art is essential if you do large paintings and aim to work a lot; you don't want to stay in the fumes and have to look at your unfinished stuff when you are home. We rented an old cellar that used to be bicycle storage in a row house neighborhood. This is where our new life as professional artists started. After a while of spending time together, the idea of doing some collaborative work came naturally. We have moved our studio few times over the years, adjusting to our needs as few guys have moved out of town to continue their studies.

The group needed a name of course. A lot of ideas were tossed around but Hydra was the one that stuck though it felt silly at start. The popular marvel movies of had an influence and many of used to read comics as kids and still do. The image of the evil organization played very well with what we had in mind, while also drawing from the original mythical creature that grew many heads. Mainly referring to the fact that we present our art as made by single body but our individuality is shown in the art. There is no structure or hierarchy in our group and decisions are based on discussions. Though it may look as we have some agenda it is not something that clearly articulated amongst ourselves and we are not signed on to any ideology as a group, except that of making art if it counts. We observe the world and reflect what we see back to the work. The threat and eventual shut down of Institute of Fine Arts by the government and the education concern had their part in the formation of the group in my opinion, though this is sometimes debated.

The Hydra logo

The Finland’s herald lion was the base of the design for symbol. We replaced the lion head with the six heads of the Hydra. The original herald lion is wielding a sword , while trampling a saber. We dropped the sword to it's feet next to the another one and replaced it with a paint brush. The crown has fallen off to the ground, perhaps the lion cut his own head off?

The works

Hamburger Hill at Oyoy gallery

Our first exhibition was called Spacework 70m2/6, cleverly derived from the all-important work space. The exhibition featured few works from each of us and an installation showing sketches and plans representing the studio. The main piece was our first collaborative work titled “Hamburger Hill”. Game of thrones was a big thing at the time and few of us got the fever as well. In the opening sequence along with the captivating theme there is a map of the territory and the castles rising which gave the inspiration for our own battleground. The title is a reference to a pointless battle fought in Vietnam. The work was mainly constructed of miniature sculptures created from scratch or modified from toys.

Mielivaltio

Mielivaltio was a performance we held the same summer at the Lahti market place. The title is a wordplay in Finnish. Mielivalta is directly translated arbitrariness, while* mieli* means mind and valtio means the state. The performance consisted of us six wearing our black Hydra uniforms, ski masks and all placing square pieces like in the board game Carcassonne, only the pieces were all black and there would be no point to the game. We all took turns and placed pieces till claiming area till we ran out. The performance was made in spirit of public intervention, no explanations were offered to the audience during or after. Little difficult to watch for me personally but guess you do have to suffer for your art.

Seimi at the X-Mas Spatial

The following Christmas we were asked to do a piece for Lahden Nykytaiteen Kioski (Lahti Kiosk of Contemporary art)- An old convenience store now rented as a small gallery space. The nativity scene is Christian tradition is something that is a thing here, where a lot of shops put one in their windows during Christmas time. So we made our own, mixing in some imagined scenery of current/future middle-east and our commercial festivities and traditions with toys and random stuff.

Puutarha, The garden

Our next project would be a lot bigger. We would take the idea from our previous miniature sculpture works and try to take over the entire gallery space by transforming it. Funnily enough we applied and got some money from the government Arts Promotion Centre for the materials. The first installation was at galleria Kalleria in Helsinki and second would be next year in Lahti Galleria H.

Joulu kuvaelma, Christmas tableau

We were invited to do an at Galleria Seinä in Helsinki. They wanted something like the nativity scene we had done before, but we did not want to repeat the same idea. So we ended up chopping the garden in pieces and attached it on to a large gray board. The gallery is basically just a window, so we turned into a something like an awkward shop window, maybe with the idea of the pieces falling down in the gray background like depressing snowflakes.

from our current studio

Hydra Go at Ti-La2016

Ti-La2016 a project in Jyväskylä Finland where 52 artists feature one each week in a gallery, making use of the space however they want. Our idea was to gather material from the surrounding and craft it into something. The process was documented a lot and it may not be a stretch to see where the title comes from, with the guys chasing after something in the woods and parking lots while capturing everything with cellphones.

See more of the works in this post from earlier:

https://steemit.com/art/@mikkolyytinen/art-show-hydra-go-ti-la-2016

The world turtle

This was our last reincarnation of the Garden featured in the post earlier this week. We sculpted a sea turtle from the leftover foam we had saved from before and used the old pieces to make the shell.

Check out the post before for more of this work:
https://steemit.com/art/@mikkolyytinen/world-turtle-by-hydra

So that is the journey so far. Who knows what is in store for the future. I hope you liked this look in to our group efforts.