From 3 to 5 October 2025, the Gallery Festival invites visitors to the galleries and exhibition spaces in and around the Südstadt district under the motto ‘Südflash’. At the Museum of Sepulchral Culture, Finnish artist Eeva Ojanperä will be showing her work ‘frühe morgen – early mornings’. Three questions for the artist.

Eeva, this isn't your first time with us. What is your connection to our museum?
In 2017, I took part in the group exhibition REGRET with the animation class at the Kassel Art Academy and showed three works that dealt with the death of my father and my relationship with him. It was a three-part installation. Now, years later, I am reflecting on my grief work in my new piece ‘frühe morgen – early mornings’.

How have you encountered the topics of dying, death and saying goodbye so far?
I am constantly confronted with topics such as death, inheritance, the concept of family or kinship, loss, and also interfaces with transformation, reflections and insights in processes. Personally and artistically, I try to give these topics a holistic, individual, process-based space. In this space, seemingly opposing or contradictory positions can be juxtaposed, implemented and entered into dialogue. Here, I want to be able to perceive pain in the broadest sense in order to use it as an associative force in my actions and deeds.

In your opinion, what can an aesthetic approach achieve in the dialogue about finitude?
I like artworks that invite visitors to participate sensually. The synthesis between haptics, sound and image can open a portal through which one steps into a threshold space that can be deeply moving. What can deep movement achieve? Understanding, anger, forgiveness, new perspectives, new spaces, expanses, acceptance, boundaries, and much more. The important thing is that some kind of movement takes place and, in the best case, triggers a process.

Interview: Anna Lischper

About the artist

Eeva Ojanperä, born in Pori, Finland, has lived and worked in Kassel since 2006. Her artistic practice moves at the intersections of sound, photography, moving image, spatial installation and digital media. She explores technological mediation and the interplay of presence and absence in everyday life. This results in multisensory works that deal with themes such as identity, loss and connectedness. Ojanperä studied visual communication at the Kunsthochschule Kassel and has participated in the Kassel Studio Tour several times. Her works have been shown at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, the Hugenottenhaus, the 387 Südflügel Kulturbahnhof Kassel and during the Kassel RANGE Sound Festival, among others. The artist's website can be found at: www.eevaojanperae.de