By Tellervo Kalleinen & Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, 2010
I Love My Job dramatizes conflicts experienced by employees of eight different work places in Helsinki, Finland and Gothenburg, Sweden. The episodes end with dark fantasies, that have grown in minds of the participants because of the unresolved conflicts.
Eight back projection screens are hanging in a dark space. In each scene you see a title of a profession. One film is playing at a time.
People in White is a film that explores the relationship between doctor and patient in mental health care from the point of view of 10 patients.
In the film a central artistic device is re-enactment of key moments in the therapeutic process in which former patients play themselves as well as their doctors. Memories vary from beautiful, healing moments to the horrors of isolation and abuse.
Margreet has been receiving electroshock treatment monthly for 2 years now. As side effect she has lost most of her memory – but she doesn’t care because she feels better. She has had the same psychoanalyst for 20 years. He is her memory; He knows more about her than she can remember. She is afraid what will happen when he dies.
Margreet is one of the 10 patients who gather together in order to share their experiences about mental health care professionals. They return to their memories through story telling and re-enactments. Some of the stories are beautiful descriptions of healing moments. For other participants the traumatic experiences they had with doctors are still haunting them even today after many years.
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Tellervo Kalleinen traveled around the world placing ads: ”Plan a film scene in your home and give a Finnish woman a role in it”. She went to every home where she was invited and acted the roles she was given.
The project was realized in Hamburg, Helsinki, Los Angeles, Seydisfjördur, St.Petersburg and Tallinn. Altogether 65 scenes were filmed.
Installation
The work is presented as an installation with six arm chairs and six tv monitors on a carpet.