Markku Hakala & Mari Käki: Hiidenkirnu

19.2.–15.3.2026

Giant´s Kettle is a cultural pitfall that has formed over millennia, and from which we are searching for a way out. 

Giant´s Kettle is a lament for the world, to which it is becoming increasingly difficult to identify.  

Giant´s Kettle is an art exhibition where the photographs hung on the walls come to life. 

Giant´s Kettle is a collection of mute landscape images of the landscape of inevitability.  

Giant´s Kettle is repeated stumbling and attempting to remain upright, being crushed under gravity, a heavy stone block placed on the head and fresh cling film wrapped around the head.  

Giant´s Kettle is dreamlike flashes of a few minutes of films depicting the dualistic dynamics of the mind. Broken figures repeatedly playing the ingrained roles of civilization, seeking a way out, connection to each other, to nature, to themselves, without understanding based solely on knowledge. Feelings hidden.  

Giant´s Kettle is a work exploring the expressive space between film and photography, born from the dialogue and shared six-year endeavor of Markku Hakala and Mari Käki. 

Giant´s Kettle is a cinematic art film that has won several awards at international film and photography festivals. 

Giant´s Kettle is an exhibition of films and photographic prints based on this film.  

Giant´s Kettle is a cultural pitfall that has formed over millennia, and from which we are searching for a way out.  

On the work process. The starting point for Hiidenkirnu was a script that wrote itself like a dream, and loyalty to the images that thus appeared. Our task was to serve the captivating script and stay out of its way, which wanted to come to light. Although our initial goal was to create a film, the practical work process from the beginning more resembled art photography in the studio or digital painting than film production. 

For each image, we reserved a month of pre-production time, during which we researched and built the shooting location or studio, set design, props and lighting. The actual shooting phase with the performers usually lasted a day or two. After this, Markku has taken most of the images through a complex digital processing process, in which he has inserted photographs and video material shot from different subjects into the images. 

On the artists. The artist couple Hakala and Käki from Ylöjärvi come from outside both the art and film fields. Mari Käki, M.A., b.1973, who has studied literature and women's studies, also works as a supervisor and trainer. For Mari, dialogue is life and life is dialogue. Markku Hakala, M.A., b.1975, has switched to being an artist from a career as an entrepreneur and computer science researcher. For him, art and philosophy represent the only ways to exist in this time.