Hanna Ryynänen. Saimaa University of Applied Sciences. Selected Graduate 2016

Saimaa University of Applied Sciences, Imatra, Finland

Hanna Ryynänen - Habitats. A Portrait of One
Habitats - a Portrait of One is an abstract study of human selfhood in the form of jewelry.
The potency of personal objects and jewelry is greatly based on their ability to materialize invisible inner world and transform it touchable. A piece of jewelry is particularly intimate object which is seldom lend to others. While it resides close to selfhood it often becomes part of one’s identity or even concrete part of one’s body.
What comes to identity and personality, jewelry has a prominent role in conveying them to others. A piece of jewelry enhances identity and maintains it by acting as collector and preserver of memory. It connects the past with the future, creating a link between times, places and people. A piece of jewelry could also be taken as memorial of its owner’s life.

This project emulates the natural process of jewelry collecting life inside it. Generally this happens piece by piece, throughout years in communication between the piece and the owner. Instead, I wanted to charge the pieces of jewelry with certain experiences and meanings on purpose. Using myself at the same time as experiencer and maker I put together pieces that materialize and conserve a selfhood of a person.
Habitats is a five-part series of jewelry and objects. The series arises from cultural and personal meanings that the artist gives to the most important people and events affecting her life. Identity, the experience of selfhood, is greatly dependent on other people and social interaction. A person could be seen to possess as many sides of selfhood as one has social groups to which one belongs.

On one hand, Habitats is an artist’s portrait assembled from several pieces. It is an attempt to knowingly record life already passed and current in the form of jewelry and objects, as if backup for times yet to come. Simultaneously, the most important factors of the artist’s life get saved into the portrait. Carved from stone the very parts which have been and still are shaping her selfhood become visualized.
On the other hand, viewed by spectator, the five works draft a portrait of one whose pieces of life could as well be taken from anyone’s life. The pieces are set into an anonymous home-like environment, as if waiting to get in touch with someone. The series name Habitats implies directly to person’s various places in life. The names of the individual pieces - Contradiction, Energy, Happiness, Opportunity and Certainty -, however are more ambiguous, aspects generally related to human life. Despite its abstract form Habitats offers familiar hints from this human life, leaving room for the spectator to discover one’s own meanings.

Find out more about the courses and deadlines for applications to Saimaa University of Applied Sciences