Two flower-shaped garden beds made of metal with dirt in the middle of grassy field, with a house in the background.
A grassy field with wildflowers and a dirt path leading toward an old wooden barn on a sunny day.
Close-up of a garden bed with small white daisies and other green foliage growing in soil.

The Middle Chapters, 2025, clay letters, soil, plants

Half watermelon with pink flesh and black seeds, sitting on a black surface.

Time and Space of Melondarin, 2025, 4K-video, 14 min

White letters spelling 'WEIRD' on the floor against a plain white wall, with paint splatters and marks on the dark surface.

Solid Like Structures, 2024, 40 cm x 330 cm, clay and wall (installation detail)

Close-up image of fine, light beige sand with gentle, wavy ridges and small sparkles.

Ghostwriter, 2023, sand and wind, 1,5m x 2m

I used an air stream to blow fine sand into a formation, creating a landscape resembling a desert, a sculpture, and writing. The images carried by the wind and the sand.

Indoor scene showing a beige sand texture rug with footprints on it, placed over a wooden floor, with a door and a narrow window in the background.
Empty room with wooden floor, a window with a view of green trees, and a beige rug with a textured pattern.

Ghostwriter II, 2025, sand and wind, 3m x 5m

Empty room with wooden floor and ceiling, central wooden support beam, white wall with shadow pattern, and visible electrical conduit.

Sunshine Collection I 4k-video, 10 min

In the moving image installation Sunshine Collection I and II the gathered reflections of sunlight on the walls create a collection of different times and memories. These mundane, easily overlooked sights now take on a significant role by reflecting back a temporal perspective and posing a challenge to contemplate the quality of observations and the hidden images that exist everywhere, as well as their transient nature.

An indoor space with wooden ceiling beams and a hardwood floor, featuring a projection of a stylized rocket on a white wall.

Sunshine Collection II 4k-video, 12 min

Close-up of a human ear with soft skin and a black earlobe.
Five white speakers mounted on red wall with wiring, and steps leading to a white area in a modern interior.
An art installation with a white and red painted wall, featuring nine white wall-mounted speakers with wires, and a woman sitting on a gray bench in front of the wall.

Dramatis Personæ, 2021, 29-channel soundwork

Dramatis Personæ equals all the characters of a play, short story, or other narrative. In Tiina Palmu’s sound piece, the play or story is considered more broadly as different forms—such as a life, gallery space, street, or thought. Its characters, Dramatis Personæ, are words, users of a language, and the countless roles held in the human psyche. In the piece, 29 audio speakers repeat all the Finnish words listed in the Finnish Language Board's Internet dictionary as read by the artist. Each of the speakers represents one letter of the alphabet. As they play simultaneously, the space is flooded with concepts and meanings arising from the crisscrossing of random word sequences, memories, and things learned.

Three people standing against a plain wall, two of them are women wearing headscarves, and a man with short white hair. They appear to be engaged in conversation.

Storyteller, 2017, two channel video installation, 11 min 11 s

In Tiina Dia’s video piece Storyteller (Rasskaztšitsa) the artist recites a story she has memorized, in a language she does not speak. The story of 16 piglets at Christmas was originally told to her by a Moldovian woman and is shared in the piece by the artist as if her own.

Tiina Dia met a woman in Helsinki who told her a story from her life in Moldova. After memorizing it in Russian the artist travelled 1800 km to Moldova, to a village where the woman had lived and the events taken place around 60 years ago. There she repeated the story to the villagers who wanted to listen. During the act of reciting the story the artist’s repetitive learning process was counterweighed by a completely uncontrollable situation.

At the core of Tiina Dia’s piece is the attempt to engage through language, and finally the breakdown of communication when the meanings do not meet. ”I could repeat a very concrete sentence, like there were 16 piglets born, and the Russian speaking listener gets that information. The same spot in the story for me is a rise on top of a black and yellow hill, after which there comes a plane,” the artist explains. The piece also carries the traditional continuum of storytelling, inherited through generations, moulding each individual. The name of the exhibition, Rasskaztšitsa, is Russian and translates to a storyteller, which is the perceived role of the artist in the piece.

Creator Chiasm, 2021, digital print, 40cm x 50cm

A person reaching up with their hand in a room with white walls and a black space, a blue circular object, and a blue square panel with a small white circle in the top left corner.

Attempting Ideal, 2015, HD video, 4 min (loop with sound)

Attempting Ideal is a contemplation of aspiration and achievement. Which is more important?
In the moving image work a character tries to throw the ball from a small hole and only a perfect shot allows success.