The Trace
The Trace is a multi-disciplinary performance developed in the cooperation of visual artist Hannaleena Heiska and dancer/choreographer Minna Tervamäki. The Trace comes into being in the encounter of two modes of presentation and expression, in their transient nature. It is a work that actualises and articulates in time and space. In its performative presence are combined painting and dance, colours and bodily movements, the gazes of two auteurs and a profound interaction. This is about repetition that opens up, doesn’t confine, about the nuances and actualisations of repetition.
The work highlights the temporality and spaciality of a performance and a work, and the compositional reflection of a transient interaction. The project doesn’t concentrate on meta levels, it is not concerned, as the mainstream discourse of contemporary dance is, about what happens after the dance/choreography, but instead is interested about what happens during the act, inside of it, by it.
The process poses questions and questions itself and what it does: What happens during the performance/work? What makes it what it is, what it wants to be? In relation to itself, and in relation to the inheritance of experimental performative acts, as a part of the minimalistic and geometric performance that is linked all the way to Bauhaus.
More than anything, the project is a series of concrete acts, artistic interventions that intertwine and build into one another. In them is articulated the changing sameness of actions.
The Trace - EMMA
EMMA Espoo Museum of Modern Art, 2016
The first performance of Jälki – The Trace was produced in 2016 as a part of Espoo Museum of Modern Art EMMA’s 10th anniversary programme.
Each of the four performances was its own artwork and entity.
Creative team
Concept: Minna Tervamäki & Hannaleena Heiska
Performance: Minna Tervamäki & Hannaleena Heiska
Audio engineer: Benjamin Herala
Cinematographer: Ali Kesanto
Editing: Ali Kesanto
Production: Minna Tervamäki & Hannaleena Heiska, EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art
Photo credit: Ari Karttunen / EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art
Trace I, 11.11.2016, EMMA - Espoo Museum of Modern Art




Photos © Ari Karttunen / EMMA - Espoo Museum of Modern Art
Watch the trailer below

Trace II, 18.11.2016, EMMA - Espoo Museum of Modern Art





Photos © Ari Karttunen / EMMA - Espoo Museum of Modern Art
Trace III, 26.11.2016, EMMA - Espoo Museum of Modern Art





Photos © Ari Karttunen / EMMA - Espoo Museum of Modern Art
Trace IV 27.11.2016, EMMA - Espoo Museum of Modern Art







Photos © Ari Karttunen / EMMA - Espoo Museum of Modern Art
The Trace - Art Fair Suomi
Art Fair Suomi, 2017
Creative team
Concept: Minna Tervamäki & Hannaleena Heiska
Performance: Minna Tervamäki & Hannaleena Heiska
Production: Minna Tervamäki & Hannaleena Heiska
Production assistant: Katri Kari
Photo credit: Katri Kariv