Four Trick Pony (2020) is a video installation constructed of the personal film and video archives of two documentarists. Based on prime numbers, the work uncouples itself from the bonds of documentary cinema, the tradition of narrativity, and the logic of causality. Unique at every moment, it never repeats the same twice.

Four Trick Pony consists of four parts, each associated with a prime number. Together they generate endlessly new combinations. Prominent elements in the footage are experientiality, transitoriness, moment, attention, observation and awakening. The work has no beginning and no end, it starts when the viewer enters the space and ends when the viewer exits.

The initial impetus for the work was the artists’ realisation of the ever-present demand for stories. Four Trick Pony is their way of exploring what happens when narrative is rejected. Will we then unwittingly create one? What alternative ways are there to tell about the world we live in? Do we always need a story, or can its fundamental purpose – reaching out emotionally to other people – be served also without a narrative?

Pia Andell (b.1964) has directed documentaries and fiction films for three decades. Her films have won awards both in Finland and internationally. Born in Turku, Andell currently lives in Helsinki.

Mina Laamo (b.1978) directs and produces documentary films in which she explores grief, the sense of inadequacy, and fear of otherness – emotions we do not wish to encounter in ourselves.

Four Trick Pony is Andell and Laamo’s first collaborative new media work.

This exhibition is supported by the Promotion Centre for Audiovisual Culture, the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, and Arts Promotion Centre Finland.