“PICKLE FREE" (2025) 

Lari Suominen, b.1988 

A Tribute to David Hammons. 

New York, 1995: David Hammons kicks a metal bucket down a dark street. A black man, late at night, surrounded by urban danger. The heavy metallic container clangs loudly against the asphalt, each kick underscoring existence, risk, and social tension. "Kicking the bucket"—the dance between life and death. 

Helsinki, 2025: A white man kicks an empty pickle jar. The sound remains loud, but the context has shifted. Not the same threat, not the same history, but the act remains. Who gets to kick, where, and how? Is resistance about volume, or is it movement itself? What happens when history is placed in a new setting? 

Pickles are preserved, like memories and meanings. Hammons’ original act has been jarred, transported, and re-enacted. From metal bucket to metal pickle jar—the material remains, but the contents have changed. And now, the jar is empty. In Finland in 2025, art and culture face budget cuts, funding is stripped away, resources are depleting. The kicked jar is not just an empty object—it is a symbol of emptiness itself. 

This work is both a homage and an inquiry. How does movement and sound change when history is jarred and reopened? Is the jar just an echo chamber, or is there still something left inside? 

VIDEO, COLOR, SOUND, SHOT ON 8MM, 5MIN. 4SEC. 

Cinematographer: Perttu Inkilä

Sound: Jani Hietanen

Production: Beautiful Maladies 

Due to technical reasons, the implementation will change!

GALLERY TAKAKONTTI

The first to be presented is Pickle Free, a video work by Lari Suominen. The piece clanks and glows within an old CRT television, framed by black satin curtains. It draws you in like a memory that refuses to let go.

Pickle Free will be on display at the Cube on the third floor of the Espoo Cultural Centre from Monday, December 8 at 2 PM, throughout the week during the building’s opening hours.

Production: Beautiful Maladies

Schedule: Open throughout the week during the building’s opening hours.

Starts: Monday, December 8 at 2:00 PM

Ends: Sunday, December 14 at 4:30 PM (note: limited opening hours on Sunday)

Location: Espoo Cultural Centre, the Cube, 3rd floor, Kulttuuriaukio 2

Tulevaisuustarinoita

ORIGINAL CONCEPT

The world’s smallest art gallery can be found in the back of a pickup truck.

Gallery Takakontti is a mobile exhibition space that brings art directly to the street, the edge of a field, or the shadow of a parking hall. It is an intimate and self-contained stage where smallness is a choice — not a limitation. The gallery focuses especially on media art: moving image, sound, and light.

Gallery Takakontti is a concept where art lives on the edges of everyday life and moves in new ways. It was born from the desire to take art out of white cubes and into surprising spaces — places where artwork and environment engage in dialogue.

Welcome aboard.