Interview with Remi Vesala, Matti Harju, and Sini Henttu

We interviewed the curator of the showroom 3: rules of reality event Remi Vesala and the event's artists Matti Harju and Sini Henttu. showroom 3 will be held for the third time at Mad House on Friday, March 13, 2026.

Mad House to Remi Vesala: You currently work as a curator in quite different contexts. Among other things, you do audience engagement outreach work at Kiasma and operate in the gallery context at Lou, which is a multifaceted, lovingly and thoughtfully curated art space. 

What has been distinctive in your experience of curating moving-image screenings for performance stage, the Mad House Helsinki black box? 

Remi Vesala: The contexts you mentioned have very different temporal dimensions, rhythms of making and experiencing. When working for the stage, there is a particular intention that I  find appealing: an invitation to come to a specific place at a certain time, a kind of offering. In exhibitions, the curator hovers as a name in the list of contributors, in showroom I am physically present and the relationship with the co-audience is immediate. It has been a conscious choice to be visible, to host the evening. In that way, I carry responsibility for the shared situation—the artists are present through their works, and I through the choices of bringing them together and planning how we experience them collectively. I hope this makes the curator's work visible and at the same time creates transparency about the fact that someone is always behind the choices.

Mad House to Matti Harju: What makes moving images the most natural form of work for you? Which of it qualities or possibilities fascinate you the most?

Matti Harju: I've probably always been interested in experientiality. And in a certain kind of narrativity, which can of course be constructed in many ways. And the fact that when you're making a work, you're completely inside things yourself, but the finished piece gives the viewer distance and the peace to observe. 

And the fact that everything I can see and hear can be transformed into a moving image, in very different ways, excites me. It offers a way to bring structure to this rather chaotic and immersive experience of living. What fascinates me about moving images is its ability to give form to experience!

Mad House to Sini Henttu: In my view, the work Drain to (2025) manages to combine elements of horror and dystopia in a way where its compositional solutions also evoke humor in the viewer. How did you arrive at such a delicious atmosphere?

Sini Henttu: In art , horror and comedy often go side by side, with horror also containing humor in its absurdity. In Drain to, exhausted corporeality—in the form of both human and the soil—is filmed by running past everything. I am interested in the boundary between horror and comedy, because I think it contains something characteristic of our time. For example, the aura of our time – acceleration – contains comical features in all its tragedy. As the rhythm becomes increasingly unaccessible, we rush hastily from one thing to another – as if we were in a constant hurry to reach our end.

Read more about the Showroom 3: Rules of Reality event.