Maarit Suomi-Väänänen work as an artist in the fields of media art as well as experimental film. She has visual artist´s identity and film maker´s and media artist´s education. Suomi-Väänänen combines the expressive forms of visual art to optical possibilities. Her short films ponders social and emotional themes as well as those connected to identity and communication.

The moving image and film/video is at the core of her work. Her starting point when making a moving image is that it will be shown in an exhibition space. By the nature in which they are used and their subjects, the inflexible themes of the moving image morph and flow into the other elements of the space, elements such as photographs and installations. Praised as fascinating and open to a multitude of interpretations, Suomi-Väänänen's awarded works have toured over 30 countries, appearing in exhibitions, at festivals, and on TV as well in Internet and different kind of happenings. The dialogue between the moving and the still image is continuous both at the manuscript and presentation stages. Other elements can be immaterial such as light, sound and smoke. Because she makes multi-elements and multi-sensual works, she also co-operates with artists from different fields. Her art is often wordless and abstract so that my works are seen as open and ambiguous.

Like her latest work Up And About Again (2009, 10min) is interpreted and qualified as a fictive, documentary and experimental short film as well as installation in galleries and museums and tv programme. Plus these Up And About Again has shown in multiple concepts: as a back ground projection in Italian superstar Lorenzo Jovanotti`s stadium concerts as well as in punk clubs in Tampere Finland. The latest is in the Avantgarde Drive-in-theatre In Wien, Austria. Suomi-Väänänen´s works seems to be slipping away from traditional genres and categories. Up And About Again has shown over 100 venues in 23 countries since the film was completed on May 2009.

She belongs to the 68 Septante / Vidéothèque Nomade based in Brussels. Finnish Film Foundation, AV-arkki The Distribution Centre of Finnish Media Art, 68 Septante / Vidéothèque Nomade (Brussels) and Vtape (Toronto) are distributing her films. Maarit Suomi-Väänänen was born in Tampere, Finland 1966.

She lives in Helsinki and works with an artist´s stipendium granted by the Finnish Cultural Foundation.

Artist Code: 1011