Secret Words and Related Stories

2013-2016 (ongoing), video installation with a book, glass works and reading performance

 

Secret Words and Related Stories installation view, Greatest Hits, exhibited artists: Cyprien Gaillard, Francis Alÿs, Gary Hume, Hannah Black, Jonna Kina, Lucia Nimcova, Pierre Huyghe, curators: Evelyn Raudsepp, Maria Arusoo, Maria Helen Känd, Maria-Kristiina Soomre, Marten Esko, Siim Preiman, Triin Metsla, Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia, EKKM, Tallinn (18.6.2022-7.8.2022)

Secret Words and Related Stories installation view, Greatest Hits, exhibited artists: Cyprien Gaillard, Francis Alÿs, Gary Hume, Hannah Black, Jonna Kina, Lucia Nimcova, Pierre Huyghe, curators: Evelyn Raudsepp, Maria Arusoo, Maria Helen Känd, Maria-Kristiina Soomre, Marten Esko, Siim Preiman, Triin Metsla, Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia, EKKM, Tallinn (18.6.2022-7.8.2022)

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Secret Words and Related Stories, 4K, 20 min12 sec, installation view, AMA Gallery, 4.-24.3.2016

Secret Words and Related Stories, installation view, part of Poetics of Encryption exhibition, curated by Nadim Samman, KW institute of Contemporary Art, Berlin 16.2-26.5.2024

 

Secret Words and Related Stories is a set of anonymously collected passwords and the stories behind them. The entry point is personal “secrets” and security, and their place in contemporary society. To examine independence—a limited kind of independence—is to unravel what security means to the identity, a kind of coding of physical history and memory to access all kinds of commerce and services in the virtual world. That key is compressed into these fragments of language (passwords) that areunpackaged through the work. In the video, young actors between the ages of 12 and 16 years stand in front of a red backdrop and read from a sheet of paper, narrating personal confessions, childhood memories, and clichéd rationalities. These are thoughtful, humorous, and emotional stories about a chosen word that often discloses personal information, which is the antithesis of its purpose. The 74 passwords and corresponding stories featured in this video are also collected in an eponymous book, published in the style of a paperback novel.

 

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Secret Words and Related Stories, behind the scene, pigment print, framed

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Secret Words and Related Stories -book

 

Credits:
Director & editor JONNA KINA
Actors EMILIA BENFORD, JESSI COLLIER, MARKUS RÄISÄNEN, HEIKKI PENTTINEN, MARTIN ÖRN, CLEOPATRA HÖGBACKA
Sound design JOHANNES VARTOLA
Translators SEIJA NYHOLM, EMILIA NORLAMO
Graphic design of the book TOMMI VASKO
Supported by AVEK, ARTS PROMOTION CENTRE, FINNISH CULTURAL FOUNDATION
Special thanks: All the anonymous participants, The English School, Seija Nyholm, Iida Frima, Egor Garanin, Maksim Kasatkin, Fia Leminen, Pratham Talonen, Jasmine M’rabet

 

 

Copyright © Jonna Kina. All rights reserved.