A Giant’s kettle

A Love Story Without Love

Markku Hakala and Mari Käki – An Exhibition of Moving Photographs at the Tampere House Gallery

The exhibition by Markku Hakala and Mari Käki is based on digital images. The moving images, hung on the gallery walls like paintings, resemble scenes from a film. The related film Hiidenkirnu will be screened at Tartu Elektriteater on Wednesday, May 7 at 6 PM, and the exhibition at Tampere House will open on Thursday, May 8 at 5 PM.

The central theme of the exhibition is alienation and the lack of connection. “Fragile figures wander lost, searching for connection, but remain outsiders—in their relationships with each other, with themselves, with nature, and with the crushing bureaucracy of official institutions,” says Markku Hakala in describing the exhibition.

“The message can also be interpreted as societal. A giant’s kettle (hiidenkirnu) forms when meltwater and ice masses flow forward, trapping a stone that grinds itself a prison into the bedrock. As a civilization, we are at a point where we must find a way out of our pit.”

The exhibition opening on Thursday at Tampere House and the film screening on Wednesday at Elektriteater form a unified whole, but they also function as independent works. The artist couple worked on the Hiidenkirnu project—situated between film and art photography—from 2017 to 2023. It premiered internationally in the debut competition section of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF 2023), was awarded Best Debut Work in Girona in 2024, and received a cinematic arts award at the world’s largest photography festival in Sharjah (Xposure 2025).

The artist couple from Ylöjärvi, Hakala and Käki, come from outside both the art and film worlds. Mari Käki (b. 1973) has studied literature and women’s studies. Markku Hakala (b. 1975) transitioned from being a growth entrepreneur and computer science researcher to becoming an artist. For him, art and philosophy represent the only way to exist in this era.