Kalbranti

2018, HD video, duration: 00:05:10, stereo, english subtitles

 History is always written by someone, from a particular perspective. For my father’s generation, the history of the Finnish civil war is still familiar knowledge passed from generation to generation, but experiential connection to war will soon be forgotten, as the grandchildren of those who have lived through the national trauma of civil war will be gone. How will forgetting effect on our ability to feel empathy, understand those less fortunate, be merciful. We experience war through the news, stories from afar, or in fiction and constructed entertainment. The connection of war to political circumstances does not touch us personally. The video work Kalbranti shows grandfather and granddaughter in a constructed situation of telling a family history from the civil war year.