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- Films with Stéphane Querrec
- Video-Installation Works
- Site Specific Works
- Texts and Essays
- ‘Monumental Indifference in Tallinn’ by Paul Wilson
- Excerpt from ‘He Wants to Be Young and Beautiful’ by Katarzyna Kosmala
- ‘Political Refractions: Cities, Societies, and Spectacles in the Work of Anu Pennanen’ by Lolita Jablonskiene
- ‘Les images coup de poing d’Anu Pennanen’ par Lolita Jablonskiene
- ‘Flipperin pyörteessä’ Saara Hacklin
- ‘Artiste en residence, Anu Pennanen a Paris’ par Nathalie Poisson-Cogez
- ‘Sõprus – Дружба (Friendship)’ by Emily Cormack
- ‘Anu Pennanen’ Eva May für Pensée Sauvage – Von Freiheit
- ‘Lentoon lähtöjä’ Henna Paunu
- ‘A Day in the Office’ by Lewis Biggs
- ‘A Monument for the Invisible’ by Cecilie Høgsbro Østergaard
- Bio and contact
‘Sõprus – Дружба (Friendship)’ by Emily Cormack
Pennanen’s video installation works explore the complex relationship between the individual and the urban environment. Typically her work occupies a space between documentary and fiction, using the built environment as a framework within which to display the emotional and metaphorical interchange between urban spaces and those who inhabit them.
Sõprus – Дружба (Friendship) is based on workshops, texts and discussions with the nine Estonian and Russian speaking teenagers that feature in the film. The workshops lead to the development of a structure for the film which highlighted the ways in which these teenagers inhabited their environment. The artist provided a framework within which to play out their daily experiences, setting them in a conscious dialogue with the urbanised cityscape. The artist follows her ‘characters’ as they move through Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. As the fragmentary narration of the film tightens towards the end, the teens, separated by language, history and perhaps even youth culture dress codes, get curious about each other. In juxtaposing the historical architecture of the country’s Soviet past, alongside the contemporary urban mall, the artist draws attention to the socio political changes that have led to Tallinn becoming one of the most liberal capitalistic market economies in the European Union. Through juxtaposing these conflicting urban spaces, the artist draws and analogy between the changing urban public spaces, the political systems bearing them and the teenagers who float within it.
Pennanen’s work reflect on the ways that any city, particularly those in the rapidly transforming Baltic regions, offer a complex combination of charged historical locations, and contemporary urban spaces. Despite these paradoxical juxtapositions, these sites are given cohesive meaning by those personally interacting with them.
Emily Cormack for ‘Don’t misbehave!’ Biennial of Art in Public Space. Christchurch, New Zealand.
Art and Industry Biennial Trust, 2006.