Biography

Jaana Kokko is an artist based in Helsinki, Finland. In her work she is interested not only in the exploration of the expressive and historical aspects of art, but equally to develop our understanding and awareness that a finished piece of art and the process of creation and displaying it publicly are political acts.

She is a Ph. D. Student at Art Department at Aalto University, University of Art, Design and Architecture in Helsinki. She has exhibited her work extensively in Finland, Estonia, Sweden, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia and Canada.

Finnish artist Jaana Kokko’s film An Hour of a Working Woman (2020) is a visual essay about a place in Valga, Estonia, where the Estonian-Finnish playwright, Marxist and politician Hella Vuolijoki (1886-1954) was born. In this location on the border of Estonia and Latvia there is a garden, which the writer and politician tended during her life there. However, the video work turns its attention to contemporary women who have lived and are still living in this place. The complicated life stories of the women are connected by the soil as a substance, and through the act of cultivation. And in terms of the continuous cycle of growth and renewal involved in cultivating a garden, and by extension the ecosystem that underpins wider society, a woman’s work is never done.