WECHSELHAFT / VAIHTELEVAA
ARTIST Ulrika Ferm (FIN)
In autumn 2008 and 2009 Ulrika Ferm traveled to Armenia to research the weather topic. She interviewed people about their weather memories, investigating possibilitiies to reconstruct some kind of overview of recent Armenian history through weather memories. Hrach Bayadan, a cultural critc in Yerevan argues, that the weather is not as important in the post communism society as in the west. He believes that the situation in the post soviet countries is quite different to the cultural conditions here. In the west the weather and especially the weather forecast plays an important part in forming the identity and can be seen as an integral part of western information culture. Usually at the end of the evening news it plays the role of light entertainment after the usual horror stories, at the same time serving the desire of people for a predictable future. According to Bavadan in Armenia weather doesn´t play this role as yet. In communist times it was more of a code to talk about important things. For instance when he was abroad for the first time, visiting an uncle and cousin in Paris, he heard about the collapse of the Soviet Union through CNN. He wanted to return to Armenia – but did not know if it was safe there. So he called a relative in Yerevan but instead of asking straight about the political situation and the possibilities to return which he was afraid to do on the phone, he asked how the weather was. A ridiculous thing to do, because calling at those times was very expensive and because the weather in Armenia in August is always dry, sunny and hot. So the relative went quiet for a while and then answered that the weather was as good as usual, only a couple of small clouds. Then Hrach knew it was save to return.In her series of drawings “Wesen/ Creatures”, Ferm moves between the nature and abstraction. The drawings appear as subconscious maps or cartographic clouds. The eye seems to find and recognize something, following the movements and waves. Every drawings has its own personality, just as the clouds we see in the sky are unique.
Ulrika Ferm studied at the University of Art and Design as well as at the University of Fine Arts Berlin and has since refined a conceptual approach to often site-related projects which involve a lot of in-depth research. These studies often tackle historical and socio-political topics while creating conceptual underpinnings for her artworks. She works with photography, installation, video and drawing. One of her most prominent works, Emergency Weather (2008) exemplifies this multi-layered, archive based, process-oriented work cycle. Developed during an artist residency in Dublin and later shown in Dazibao, Montreal and in Helsinki. Ulrika Ferm has held solo shows since 1998 and has been part of numerous group shows and biennials since. Ulrika has received considerable grants, prices and nominations. In 2002 she won the Young Finnish artist of the year award, (Tampere Museum) in 2009 she published the book Emergency Weather with Dazibao. In addition to her art projects Ulrika Ferm belongs to an artist collective that runs a renown project space and residency program called Platform in Vaasa.