Hannu Karjalainen has been chosen in Finland as the artist of the year 2009. His works circle between video, photography and performance. In his videos and photographs he deals with the meaning of certain colors and with aspects of the portrait.

In the exhibition Karjalainen´s latest video installation Blackpool Pleasure Beach (2009) will be presented. On a grid of 66 squares painted on the wall with 11 colors picked from low budget airline companies (e.g. Easy Jet) Karjalainen projects a seascape video shot in Blackpool, the popular tourist spot in Great Britain. The installation is a constantly changing exploration of color - how it changes our perception of what we are looking at and what connotations it can have. Furthermore Karjalainen creates a contemporary motif of transience: low budget airlines that bring tourists to the beaches and who threaten at the same time the existence of these places because of the rising sea level.