Lyy Raitala  

featured in As Above, So Below

‘Counting stars shooting sheep’

Video work; 5:00 min, sound

‘Counting stars shooting sheep’ is a video work that consists of five different parallel stories and fantasies that are taking place at sleepovers and parties where innocence and power are shifting back and forth. The work is exploring the dynamics of girlhood and conventions of femininity by creating scenes where things can spark and play can take over. The work is mixing personal experiences with observations, this makes reality and fantasy blurred in the created stage for the characters where there is room left for improvisation. The video is a tool to follow the stories that are happening in which the viewer is visually guided to observe the roles and the playing while the emphasis is on the absurdity of domesticity. The childlike imagination and created worlds around are morphing with the unconscious mind and desires. At the end of the day, the power dynamics are clear in this story just like when playing house as a child: everyone wants to be the big sister and you have to fight over who becomes the dad.

Previous work
from Trickle Publication

‘My wings don’t work and there’s no water’

Lyy Raitala & Baroeg Mulder 

My wings don’t fly but the sky wants me and I want it. Not a good position for a butterfly to be in. I chased it for a while, the sky. When I got there a dead bird welcomed me.
I still search, but what for is unclear. The city I wander in is big and strange, it’s the fragments of familiarity I follow.

It really isn’t easy to be a mermaid. The concrete is hurting my tail but I keep seeing beauty in the details of the ground. The eyes around me are busy, running around catching just a glimpse of my oddness on the dry land.
It really isn’t easy being a lonesome mermaid.

Lyy.raitala@gmail.com
@lyyjaava