No One Belongs Here More Than You

source: riittaikonen

Oberon book illustration awards
For this series of photographs Miranda July’s book ‘No one belongs here more than you’ was dissected. Her imaginary and witty language triggered the images dealing with states of emotions from unexpressed anger to reckless abandon.
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source: riittaikonen

Riitta Ikonen received her BA from the University of Brighton and her MA from Royal College of Art in London. She lives and works in New York City and London. She has exhibited her work at Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in Helsinki, London 2012 Olympic Park, Seibu Shibuya in Tokyo, Winzavod Art Center in Moscow, Hockney Gallery and the annual RCA Secret exhibition at Royal College of Art, Photographer’s Gallery, Tate Britain, Gulbenkian foundation headquarters and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

She is a recipient of the Michael Peters award for Interdisciplinary Collaboration, winner of the Beck’s canvas competition in 2008 and in 2011 she was the artist in residence at KINOKINO arts center in Norway with project grants from the Sandnes City council and the Finnish Norwegian Cultural institute.

Ikonen spoke in Moscow and St Petersburg hosted by the British Embassy. She has also been a guest speaker at American Institute of Graphic Arts (New York), SVA, PSFK conference (London), Helsinki Design Week, Getty Images Pecha Kucha (London) and opened the It’s Nice That talk series in 2009.

Ikonen’s work has been written about in the The Times (UK), British Journal of Photography, Arts Professional, DesignWeek, Telegraph, aCurator, Helsinki Times, P-Paper (Taiwan), Zing magazine (China), Vogue, Elle, Tate guides, Eye Magazine, VIsion Magazine, It’s Nice That magazine and blog, Conveyor Arts magazine. Her work has been published in books by Gestalten (Tangible), Atopos (Not a Toy), Gustavo Gili (Postales) and Laurence King (POSTCARD). She has been featured nationally and internationally on BBC and in Norwegian national television art show National Galeriet.

Ikonen is currently artist in residence at SPARC (Seniors Partnering with Artists Citywide) in Manhattan through Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) and artist in residence at Recess Session (Redhook) from February until April 2013.
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source: we-make-money-not-art

Riitta Ikonen is one very talented Finnish graduate from the Communication Art & Design department at the Royal College of Art in London. I discovered her work at the Summer show last June and fell in love with her costume projects. I wasn’t the only one. She received an Helen Hamlyn Design for our Future Selves award for her project Commuter Thrival, a communication campaign that aims to raise awareness of the issues surrounding public transport in London through posters visualising people’s emotions with quirky costumes.

The description of her work is delightful: My work is concerned with the performance of images, through photography and costume design. Certain items, usually small and insignificant, excite me to the point where I have to wear them and then document that process. The super- garments I make open up new experiences. In my costumes tremendous things happen – to me and to the people I work with. Today I exploded an egg in the microwave. Next, I want to make an egg costume.
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source: designboom

london based artist riitta ikonen is a recent graduate of the royal college of art. the finnish artist’s costume
based work comes from a communications impetus but has artistic merit none the less. many of her solo
projects aim to communicate messages of conservation and environmental issues. régine debatty of
we-make-money-not-art recently interviewed ikonen about her work.

looking at your portfolio, I had the feeling that humour is important to you. what part does humour play in your work? how does it help communicating an issue?

humour is vital. my work is quite telling of my character. a little humour is very compelling and has access to such a broad audience beyond language barriers. perhaps humour with my work has a bit to do with being overseas and not quite part of this team here, I’m nearly seeing it like everybody else. very almost.
for more murky issues like global warming the message can cut through a lot of fluff if the humour is done well.