Nastja Säde Rönkkö‘s salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears exhibition will be showing at Serlachius in September. Rönkkö was the recipient of the Below Zero Finnish Art Award 2023, and the work was created during her residency in London. The exhibition was first shown at Beaconsfield Gallery in London in 2023.

Rönkkö’s poetic 15-minute three-channel work takes as its starting point the commonly held belief that blood contains the same amount of salt as seawater. Three ‘narrators’ – a teardrop, a drop of ‘golden’ blood and a sweat droplet tell their own stories of love and loss in this moving work shot in HD video during February 2023 in London. The rarest blood type in the world, Rhnull, is sometimes referred to as ‘golden blood’.

Nastja Säde Rönkkö, the third recipient of the Below Zero Finnish Art Prize, describes her practice as investigating relationships between the digital era, power, humanity and the future of our planet. She works with video, performance, installation and text. She is fascinated with how concepts such as love, slowness or affection can be silent yet radical ways to be and act in the world. Her practice dreams about the future and explores presence through the politics and poetics of emotion.

We interviewed Nastja during the residency, find the interview here.

Nastja Säde Rönkkö: salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears exhibition at Serlachius from 7 September 2024 until 23 March 2025. Please visit Serlachius’ website for more info and tickets.

Photo: Courtesy of the artist