Et le passé revit le temps d’une visite

And the past comes alive again for a visit is an interdisciplinary project implemented by composer Walter Sallinen and visual artist Markus Jäntti between 2017-2022. Combining fine art and music, the project draws its inspiration from the birth history of composer Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.

The artistic result of the project are ten individual videos that each combine a visual piece by Jäntti and a sound piece by Sallinen. The project also includes an audiovisual publication of Jäntti's visual works and Sallinen's compositions with texts commenting the process. The book was published by Argobooks in October 2022.

A quote from the book:

"Sallinen discovers a drawing of a garden gnome on a cardboard display hidden in the basement boiler room. However, the gnome’s hat is not pointed as usual, rather shaped like a suction plug directed upwards, which in turn is somewhat reminiscent of Richard Wagner’s oversized beret. In Mussorgski’s piece, the gnome; in Jäntti-Tuominen’s piece, the mutated garden gnome; in Sallinen’s piece, the stomping sample sound of an idea of German folk schlager chased through Euro-trash techno..."

– Jörg Heiser