Digital video screens, media players, aluminium signal hand on telescopic handle, colour printed banner

This installation consists of three elements, connected through impressions of chance, luck and personal encounter. They exist as part of a wider body of works that reference luck in autobiographical and artistic experience.

In my childhood, we called my grandmother’s porcelain nodding doll, ‘Nidnod’. It was always considered good luck to be allowed to set it going. These digital videos of nodding figures from my own collection allow them to nod continuously.

A Manual Signal Indicator was a telescopic pole that could be extended from a vehicle window and was used for drivers to indicate that they were turning, in times before automated turn signals. This piece is based on an example from the early 1950s, found in the collection of the Museum of Transport and Technology, Auckland, New Zealand.

A Hühnergott (chicken god) is a stone with a hole in the middle of it and has been considered a talisman and protection symbol in many European cultures. In Germany, flint stones with holes in them are a common tourist souvenir from the Baltic coast.

The group exhibition, ei numeroa considers luck from a range of artistic perspectives. Spanning multiple geographies and cultural positions, the artworks touch on the operations of chance, unpredictability, agency and control within the setting of the collection of the Museum of Technology in Helsinki. It is the second exhibition for un/luck, a collaborative artistic research exchange instigated by Matthew Cowan in 2023. The understanding of luck takes many forms across history, culture and language, raising questions of power, agency, influence and chance. This project collects the artistic process of a group of thirteen artists connected with the doctoral programmes at the Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, New Zealand and The Academy of Fine Arts, Uniarts Helsinki, together considering luck and its connotations.

Participating Artists: Roma Anderson, Katrina Beekhuis, Matthew Cowan, Paul Cullen, Miklos Gaál, Matthew Galloway, Henna-Riikka Halonen, Sean Kerr, Yukari Kaihori, Louise Menzies, Ilya Orlov, Mirimari Väyrynen, Denise Ziegler.