Axel Straschnoy (born 1978) is a visual artist and filmmaker from Buenos Aires, based in Helsinki. His work deals with the social practices surrounding objects of knowledge.
The Northern Lights are a usual subject in planetariums. However, they are mostly treated scientifically, and the point of view of the camera recording them is abstract. Kilpisjärvellä tells the story of two explorers who travel to north Lapland to record the Northern Lights.
Kilpisjärvellä challenges the experience of understanding what is beyond the context and temporality of oneself. So, as is often noted, the world occurs within our context of knowledge and yet we must experience it by combining this knowledge with an intuition, acting as if we knew nothing about it. This contradiction can be found in all of Straschnoy’s work, but exceptionally so in Kilpisjärvellä.
Aura Seikkula, Truth per Person