Marika Orenius

The Course of Life

Digital Counterpart:

Excerpt from the news: The victim often wore a green hoodie.
I think of a boy who likes green when his suffering floats in my mind and obscures my reality.
Teenage death in Koskela, Helsinki, on December 4, 2020.
 
Excerpt from my life: When I saw her for the last time.
The last sign of life by an already lifeless-looking body was an electrocardiogram. As I stared at the pulse rate, the background of the electronic image drilled into my mind. It was deep green.
In the intensive care unit of the Central Hospital of Central Finland, on July 17, 1985.
 
Excerpt from the work plan: I catch myself thinking the same thing.
I draw a line that travels diagonally upwards, crosses an empty space, at its highest point, it turns left and curves its way to an opposite sloping direction. When the downward-facing line meets the upward-running line, an intersection and a loop is formed. In calligraphy, the symmetry of the loop is important – to me, the meditative movement of making the loop creates comfort.
In Kumpula, Helsinki, on February 7, 2021
 
Excerpt from the description of a traumatic stress disorder: Symptoms include persistent memories and flashbacks of what happened.
How burdensome a person perceives an event is influenced by the nature and shock of the event, but also by the factors that affect the person herself. Such factors include, for example, possible past traumatic events, inadequate mental resources, and adaptability.
Finnish student health service, Health information resource, Psychological traumas. Searched on internet March 15, 2021.

BIO

Marika Orenius (DA) is an artist-research-teacher and works as a lecturer in art pedagogy at the Academy of Fine Arts of the Helsinki Uniarts. Orenius’s dissertation (2019) from the Aalto University, highlights the connections between the artist’s work and teaching, and the visual artist’s education as a philosophy as well the change that takes place in it. Orenius has published and participated in research activities in the field of artistic research and fine arts education since the 2010s. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts (1999) and has also studied in Paris and in Gothenburg. Her artistic work encompasses video and photography as well drawing and performance art. The themes range from an individual’s experience of being in the world to issues of community and power relations. Orenius’ art has been on display since the mid-1990s.