Pekka Sassi (born 1969) is a Finnish media artist whose works include dozens of experimental sound and video pieces, short films, installations and music.Pekka Sassi. Profile of the artist in the Distribution Centre for Finnish Media Art AV-arkki. Retrieved 9 September 2018.Pekka Sassi in the Elonet database of the National Audiovisual Institute (KAVI). Retrieved 9 September 2018.
Pekka Sassi studied in the Department of Time and Space-based Art at the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, receiving a master's degree in 2000. He has additionally studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London.Sassi, Pekka: CV. www.galleriaheino.fi. Retrieved 21 October 2021. He lives and works in Helsinki, Finland, and is married to the Finnish visual artist Elena Näsänen.
In 1995 Pekka Sassi received the Ducat Prize, the oldest art award in Finland, presented annually by the Finnish Art Society to a young artist in recognition of special merit.Suomen taideyhdistys on myöntänyt dukaattipalkintoja Nuorten näyttelyn osanottajille. [The Finnish Art Society has awarded Ducat prizes to participants of the exhibition of the young artists.] Helsingin Sanomat, 17 June 1995. At the Tampere film festival of 2000 he was awarded as the most promising young artist of the year.National competition winners. Tampere Film Festival.. Retrieved 1 January 2025. In 2006 he received the AVEK award, the most significant recognition for media art in Finland.Mediataiteen Avek-palkinto Pekka Sassille. [The Avek award for media art to Pekka Sassi.] YLE news 7 September 2006. Retrieved 9 September 2018. In 2010 at the 23rd European Media Art Festival in Osnabrück, Germany, he received the EMAF Award for a trend-setting work in media art for the experimental film "The Suburb Within."Sassi, Pekka: "The Suburb Within". AV-arkki, Works. Retrieved 21 October 2021. The jury found the piece "refreshingly minimalistic, but with an extraordinary sense of humor". "The Suburb Within" (2009) was seen to stand out from the usual flood of images while not leaving out "classic narration or a well-structured setup."EMAF Award for The Suburb Within., News, Bonobostudio. Retrieved 1 January 2025.
In 2020 Pekka Sassi was awarded the Maire Gullichsen Prize for contemporary art. The Prize Committee said in its statement:"Sassi is a versatile artist, who has been making art in an avant-garde spirit for twenty years. Experimental moving images and sound form the core of his art. Sassi has an ability to condense his observations into unadorned fragments that contain multifaceted layers which hint at different meanings and times."Artist Pekka Sassi receives 2020 Maire Gullichsen prize. Alvar Aalto Foundation, press release 28 May 2021. Retrieved 21 October 2021.
A varied body of work Pekka Sassi has been considered one of the most notable Finnish creators of experimental film and media art of his generation.Anttila, Hanna Maria and Tuomi, Auli: AV-arkki 25 years. Tampere 44th International Short Film Festival. Programme catalogue. Tampere, 2014, p. 155.
Pekka Sassi has been described as being "a wide-ranging, yet uncompromising artist".Short documentary films by Emilia Ukkonen, Pekka Sassi and Jonna Kina at Kassel Dokfest. AV-arkki 7 November 2017. Retrieved 9 September 2018. His working method involves traits of collage or bricolage.Anttila, Hanna Maria: Found Meaning in Found Footage. AV-arkki 2007, p. 12. ISBN 978-952-99328-3-2Kantokorpi, Otso: Mitä näin? [What did I see?] Taide, kritiikit, 6/2009. Retrieved 9 September 2018. He constantly produces music and collects all kinds of images and sounds, integrating self-produced material and found footage to create sound pieces and audio installations or videos that combine sound with moving image. For him, "sound is half of the film/video or maybe even more." He limits the amount of image material and tries to use just the basic effects: cut, dissolve, brightness, contrast.Interview with Pekka Sassi. impakt.nl Retrieved 9 September 2018. Structurally, Sassi's works are "simple and vibrant"."When examined separately, the structure of the video track and sound is often very simple. But glued together by Sassi, these elements generate a magic, cathartic experience in the viewer – as if rock lyrics found just the right melody."Pekka Sassi’s works range from short films that tell a story to strictly abstract pieces. According to him the two facets of his work – the story, the narrative and the non-story, the abstraction – act as a counterbalance to each other.
Scripted stories Some of Pekka Sassi's works take the form of scripted stories that range from dystopian horror films to small comic impressions of the everyday.Focus on Finnish Media Art @ NEMAF, Seoul, Aug 4–12. AV-arkki, news 22 June 2016. Retrieved 21 October 2021."Sassi does not actually describe the world but reconstitutes fragmented images into basic narratives accompanied by his commentary – serious and sometimes even fervent, however, often laced with irony."
"Pekka Sassi's films show viewers ordinary surroundings that open up into self-contained universes which exist within and parallel to the real world. His subtly humorous stories often deal with the relationship between an individual and his surroundings."For example, the "Kolya saga", screened at the AAVE festival (Alternative AudioVisual Event) of 2016 in Helsinki, Finland, consists of loosely connected experimental films that address deep themes with a surreal twist.Pekka Sassi's Kolja saga. AAVE Festival 17 April 2016. Retrieved 9 September 2018. Archived. "Kolya and I"Sassi, Pekka: “Kolya and I”. AV-arkki, Works. Retrieved 22 October 2021. (2006) is a black comedy about the relationship between human and God. In "Bad News from Heaven"Sassi, Pekka: “ Bad News from Heaven”. AV-arkki, Works. Retrieved 22 October 2021. (2007), the "metaphysical hooligans" Kolya and Yuri are faced with the concept of heaven. "The Suburb Within" (2009) is, according to Sassi, about "communication, narration and presence". It is also a horror film where escalating anguish is created through the soundtrack while the abstract image has a supporting role.Schwierin, Marcel: Die lange Nacht der Ängste. Werkleitz Festival 2010. Retrieved 9 September 2018.
The fourth film of the series, "After Everything" (2014)Sassi, Pekka: "After everything". AV-arkki, Works. Retrieved 21 October 2021. emphasises visual narrative and is long (28 minutes) compared with Sassi's usually very short videos. The film was produced with support from the Finnish Film Foundation and premiered at the Tampere film festival of 2014. "After Everything" shows a dystopian world where brutality and inhumanity are part of everyday routine. The atmosphere of doom is emphasised by the combination of black and white footage, harsh settings and industrial noise music.“After everything.“ Tampere 44th International Short Film Festival. Programme catalogue. Tampere, 2014, p. 68.
Sassi taps into the conventions and phenomena of contemporary media culture and moves beyond. "Sassi's moving images work like modern poetry or jazz; flirting with existing, recognizable structures and genres – and simultaneously constructing something new in an intuitive way."
The approach is explicit in "The Dead House"Sassi, Pekka: “The Dead House”. AV-arkki, Works. Retrieved 22 October 2021. (2003), a horror film constructed following the clichés of the genre but shot in a dollhouse. According to Sassi, "The Dead House" is a "make-believe movie."Avantoscope. Avanto festival 2004. Retrieved 9 September 2018. In another piece of work, "It's All Around Us Now, Frank"Sassi, Pekka: “It’s All Around Us Now, Frank”. AV-arkki, Works. Retrieved 22 October 2021. (2006), a Western created in the spirit of Twin Peaks and emphasising narrative through sound, two male characters are forced to face the unknown and their own fears.
Abstract moving image A parallel strand in Sassi's work combines optical, kinetic and constructivist art with the tradition of abstract experimental film. Some of his works show creative integration of simple, and sometimes random, auditory and visual elements detected in the surrounding world. In a series of experimental films called "Domestic Studies in Cosmology" a new planet is discovered at the bottom of a paper coffee cup ("Void", 2004),Sassi, Pekka: “Void”. AV-arkki, Works. Retrieved 22 October 2021. a seagull circling around a pier creates a new galaxy ("Bird", 2004)Sassi, Pekka: “Bird”. AV-arkki, Works. Retrieved 22 October 2021. and a black hole is found pulsating in a kitchen sink ("Schwarzschild Radius", 2004).Sassi, Pekka: “Schwarzschild Radius”. AV-arkki, Works. Retrieved 22 October 2021."Pekka Sassi builds in a meaningful way a bridge between experimental modernism and contemporary art. In a certain manner, he is a formalist whose roots go back to the early days of experimental film in the beginning of the last century, but at the same time he is a filmmaker who reacts to the present and its themes and who puts together his material out of the congestion on offer."In "A Friend"Sassi, Pekka: “A Friend”. AV-arkki, Works. Retrieved 22 October 2021. (2016) an explicitly kinetic and constructivist work, the moving image is composed of black and white lines and grids. In contrast, the video installations "Colours" (2016) and "Moving Colours" (2020) are focussed on dialogue between colours, light, movement and sound.
The minimalist/constructivist work "Colours" (2016) is a video installation where large geometric surfaces changing colour are projected on three walls in a 20-minute loop accompanied by a soundscape. The work can be seen both as a painting and as moving image.Valjakka, Timo: Viikonlopun näyttelykierros. [Weekend tour of exhibitions.] Helsingin Sanomat, 28 January 2017. Sassi explains: "I explored what happens when the element of time is integrated into the examination of an abstract painting by cropping and synchronising images by means of moving image."Sassi, Pekka: Colours – video installation. www.galleriaheino.fi, 2017. Retrieved 9 September 2018. The immersive work has been seen to push “the traditional boundaries of concrete art towards that of a holistic and spiritual experience.”
In 2024, Pekka Sassi’s “Colours” (2016) was included in “Experiments in Concretism,” a collection exhibition of the Espoo Museum of Modern Art EMMA. Timo Valjakka, writing for Helsingin Sanomat, the leading newspaper in Finland, considered Pekka Sassi’s three-channel video installation “Colours” the most striking work in the exhibition in the sense that, while being immersive and meditative, it called to pay attention to the meticulous design.
From the meticulous shapes of constructivist art Sassi has moved towards increasingly abstract expression and intuitively variable use of colour.
Pekka Sassi's "Moving Colours" (2020) is an abstract video projection where oval surfaces slowly move and change. Afterimages in inverted colours make it difficult to determine where any given image begins or what colour it actually is. The video is accompanied by a soundscape and a series of still photos taken from the video.PEKKA SASSI Moving Colours 8.2.2020 – 8.3.2020. Galleria Heino. Retrieved 21 October 2021. “Moving Colours” has been said to bring forth previously unnoticed facets at repeated viewings. Both the video projection and the series “Still Colours” have been seen to “project a sense of fleetingness and embody a host of subtleties that hinder memory recall and the accurate reproduction by use of image capture technology.”
Festivals and exhibitions