HIAP Helsinki

Helsinki International Artist Programme

[hiaphelsinki]

Announcing the Finnish residents of HIAP Residency Programme 2019

HIAP Resident Corinna Helenelund’s installation at Open Studios in May 2018

HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme is happy to announce the Finnish art practitioners selected to HIAP Residency Programme 2019. Artist Andrey Bogush, artist Marie-Andrée Godin and artist-researcher duo Antti Salminen & Saara Hannula were each granted a 11-month residency at HIAP Suomenlinna or Cable Factory.

The residents were selected via an open call where HIAP received a total of 124 applications. The jury included Juha Huuskonen (Director, HIAP), Marina Valle Noronha (Curator, HIAP), Saara Karhunen (Residency Programme Manager, HIAP), Ahmed Al-Nawas (Substitute Member of the HIAP Board; Curator) and Miina Hujala (HIAP Associate; Curator). The jury wanted to consider how the residency would impact on the applicant's practice in a longer perspective. The aim of the programme is to offer time and space for open-ended research and experimentation, without the requirement to produce finalized pieces of work.

In addition to the Finnish residents selected, there are going to be approximately 35 international residents at HIAP in 2019, who are selected via invitation or specific open calls arranged with HIAP's programme partner organisations.

[hiaphelsinki]

WHERE ARE WE NOW WITH HIAP’S POST-FOSSIL TRANSITION?

BY ALEKSANDRA KISKONEN

‘Pofo’ is not a project among other projects but a way of doing and operating that should run through the whole institution.

This is a blog text on art organisations HIAP and Mustarinda’s collaborative project on post-fossil transition.  It is written by me, Aleksandra Kiskonen, coordinating the initial steps of the project on HIAP’s side in 2018. The position has given me an opportunity both to observe and be part of the transformation in HIAP. My situatedness is reflected in the nature of the text. I will describe the internal transformation processes in HIAP by listing concrete steps, highlighting frictions and collecting questions. By focusing on Food, Transport and Energy we aim to structure the complexity of the post-fossil discourse in our context as an art institution.  

The main question of the project’s kick-off event on 6th of April was what a cultural organisation can do to accelerate the transition to post-fossil culture? Since that we have proceeded here at HIAP with some more or less successful experiments and come across several questions.

When encountering the word post-fossil for the first time many questions are likely to arise: What does it mean? Where does the word come from? Later on come more complex questions: Is it a suitable word to describe the practices or the objectives of the project in general? Does it serve the purpose of the project? Is it accessible language? To whom? Does it alienate or exclude groups or persons? What does it mean to put it to the continuum of other post- prefix periods?

For example, a global campaign called Fossil Free (https://gofossilfree.org/), led by local groups demanding communities and institutions to commit to a fast and just transition to 100% renewable energy makes good use of the simplicity of the expression fossil free. We have also noticed that corporations such as major energy companies have started to utilise the expression. Compared to the word post-fossil fossil, ‘free’ is less burdened and easier to grasp. It speaks out the goal: free from fossil. The prefix post holds a strong reference to fossil. But where are we heading to? Would it be more fruitful to name a future in a way that it does not originate from the word fossil if we are aiming at reshaping it. At the same time post-fossil emphasizes the transition from fossil, an era after it. Fossil becomes past. The focus is on moving on. It demands for a change, challenges to look for alternative solutions and supports experimenting with them. Post-fossil is also less categorical. It allows and absorbs diverse discourses. When it comes to its abbreviation, the nickname of the project, Pofo, we suddenly have something soft in our hands, in need of care and caress.

It is extremely hard to say ”I don’t know”, “Could you tell more?”, “Let’s try” – to be a brave and proud beginner. As an individual or a group it becomes easier, as an institution it is challenging. We are aiming to improve the practices but it requires admitting that we are not familiar with or used to. We may be well-educated in theory but not so much in practical questions. When it comes to post-fossil practices whose words or speech matters? Who is professional, who is not? Is it even possible to draw this kind of line around a shared process? Do different approaches deserve different appreciation e.g. technical, poetic, practical? How to cope with the feeling of not being professional enough to act? Who is entitled to think about post-fossil practices? What is substance, anyway? How to turn our inexperience into an opportunity?

Institution is made of individuals but that is not the whole truth. The post-fossil discourse has to break out of the project bubble to become a practice. It is not a project among other projects but a way of doing and operating that should run through the whole institution. This needs to be taken into account in every single decision, act, gesture and level of the organisation which needs everybody’s commitment which means challenging, questioning, discussing, defending, believing.  How to communicate the project-influenced spirit among the staff, current residents, future residents and beyond that? A scale? A schedule? How to keep the process shared in a polyphonic institution? To create an atmosphere in which all initiatives toward post-fossil practices are welcome and it is not personified or about a single project? How to give or take time to think and organise alongside other tasks?

The Pofo initiative is a learning process, a slow metamorphosis. The first step is to recognise and pay attention to the current situation. The second is to take action and change the way of operating by establishing more sustainable practices if needed. But everything takes time. After discussion may come digesting. It may result to planning which might be followed by processing. Then scheduling. Then organizing. And that hopefully evaluation and self-reflection. Some experiments grow into practices, some fade out.  At the same time it is collective experimenting at its best. The institutional framework creates an opportunity to contaminate the inside and the outside with enthusiasm, to spread the word. The challenge is to stay open and not to create a bubble.

The Pofo initiative is a learning process, a slow metamorphosis.

In addition to the changes planned on the level of actual artists’ residencies, like supporting travel to and from the residencies by land and sea, or reducing the amount of residencies by making them longer from 2019 on, we have also put into action some micro experiments.

Soon after the urban gardening box was granted for us we gathered during a coffee break to admire it in all its weedy and dry beauty. We decided that HIAP Away Day would be the right day to inaugurate our beloved box. A list for plant suggestions was made, shopping list shared (seeds, plants, gloves), recipe for a nettle fertilizer was googled. Salad, basil, rosemary, parsley, spinach and carrots are now in a happy growing process. You can’t miss the garden watering list when going to the fridge. The weekly HIAP Morning Coffee tradition enjoys some green benefits from the box. The HIAP staff is happy to have fresh toppings every now and then. Now the questions are how to keep the enthusiasm alive and share the responsibility, create commitment and involve the residents. On one hand, our about 95x157cm urban gardening box could be criticized of being just a symbolic gesture and something in fashion. On the other hand, for us it represents a great tiny step. Thanks to it we discuss more and more different possibilities outside and inside the box. It keeps things visible, flowing and in mind.

Our HIAP Morning Coffee for residents and staff members is a potential platform to experiment on sustainable choices. The breakfast platter used to consist of fruits, veggies, bread, cookies, of something salty and something sweet. For a couple of weeks we have simplified it to be oat porridge with different toppings: berries, seeds etc. Lots of questions arose: who would make it? Does it cause extra work? Microwave or stove? Which is the most sustainable one? How to make it gluten free and vegan? Oat, buckwheat, spelt, rye, barley, raw? What if nobody likes porridge? Would this change harm the social side of the event?  When should the change take place? At the arrival of the new residents? How about the staff? Other things: The bread comes from Suomenlinna island based bakery Silo. We have also joined the organic food circle Elävä maa but the first order is still waiting to be placed.

The kick-off event of April and its organising raised a bunch of questions too. Do we go all vegan or is vegetarian “enough”? Which companies offer vegan catering? How do they understand vegan? Which wines are vegan friendly? What kind of shopping list is climate friendly? Do we want to stick to bio, local, seasonal, ethical, un-processed, animal rights or all of them? How to keep it affordable?  Is it okay to buy disposable plates and cups? Does the biodegradable cup look too much like “conventional” plastic?

During the spring 2018 HIAP has also initiated a regular series of meetings amongst the staff to discuss ethics and equality as a response to the Helsinki Art Institutions for Equality initiative, a process facilitated by artist Terike Haapoja in collaboration with artist Tellervo Kalleinen and choreographer Sonya Lindfors (http://www.artforequality.fi/). One of the topics addressed was ecology along with diversity, financial conditions, transparency, accessibility and freedom of speech. HIAP has made a commitment to become a more sustainable organisation in terms of the ecological footprint. This is a starting point. Here ecology is one of the topics among others. Many of them are possible to trace back to ecology or at least see through its lense. Ecology has potential to grow into a perspective that cuts through all other spheres.

What have we learnt so far? The most important thing is to do, to start, to experiment but also to ask more questions, to get better informed, to gain knowledge. We are also in search of indicators. How to measure the change? How to challenge the quantified, statistical approach? (look. e.g. The Independent AIR, https://www.independentsustainability.com/)

What’s next? After the summer break we will start regular gatherings (once a month) with HIAP and Mustarinda staff around topical reading and develop further the post-fossil practices and ways of discussing. Following the lead of Mustarinda, and under the guidance of artist and researcher Antti Majava, HIAP also initiates an experiment with thermostats that control room temperature and increase the energy awareness among HIAP’s residency community. HIAP is  located on the historical island of Suomenlinna, UNESCO World Heritage site managed by the governing body of Suomenlinna. This affects HIAP’s possibilities to shape its own energy solutions.

We are working toward organising the first Pofo residencies during the spring-summer 2019, as well as communicating the first steps of the shared learning process to wider audiences through a public summer programme at HIAP Suomenlinna.

[hiaphelsinki]

SASHA KURMAZ

AN INTERVIEW BY ATHANASÍA AARNIOSUO AA: What materials, techniques, and themes do you use in your work? SK: The local context is important for my work, in other words, I always try to work in such a way that my work resonates with the place in which it was created or presented. AA: What are some of the topics you have covered in your public interventions, your performances, and your zines? SK: In my artistic practice, I explore a wide range of topics that work with topics both politically and poetically (mostly it is the socio-political issues), but at the same time, I am interested in the study of space by means of photography, drawing, video, and interaction, as well as the study of the influence of the artwork on the social context, and searching alternative ways for representation of the artwork outside the art institution. AA: Why does it feel important for your work to exist in print as well as a performance? SK: Because any exhibition / performative work has a number of fences: space, time, accessibility for visiting, etc., the book is free from these restrictions. Also, the book is more mobile and compact, which is also very important for me. AA: Do you have any formal education or training in the book arts? If not, what was your route into making artists' books and zines? SK: Yes, I graduated from the Academy of Art in Kiev, but you should know that was post-Soviet education. It means that this knowledge is not relevant nowadays. So, most of the knowledge/experience that I have today I got by myself. Also, graffiti and street/punk culture influenced me a lot in the early of 2000s. AA: Do your zines develop from performative work, or do you use the book as a conceptual starting point? SK: These are two independent media that exist autonomously, but sometimes they overlap. AA: How do you see artists' books and the book arts in general sitting in relation to the contemporary art world? SK: I see a big interest to the artist's books and photo books today. Perhaps this is due to the fact that people have become tired of the digital world around them, or maybe because this is a universal media available to everyone. AA: Who reads your zines and what do you hope they’d take away from them? SK: Good question. Actually, I do not know. Ha-ha. I get great pleasure when I create a book / zine, I hope that the people who watch my works have the same feeling. AA: Action or zines, what do you enjoy more? SK: Actually, both. The book and situational actions in public space are important to me in the same way, but maybe for the book, I pay more attention today. For example, me and my friend, some time ago we created an experimental publishing house One Copy Book (http://www.onecopybook.com) in which we plan to rethink what it means to be a publishing house today and what is a book now.

Images courtesy of the artist.

[hiaphelsinki]

SYOWIA KYAMBI’S NEW MYTHOLOGIES

AN INTERVIEW BY ATHANASÍA AARNIOSUO Syowia Kyambi works in many layers. Her current work ties in with previous performances, which are based on stories, histories and universal mythologies. She is working on the island of Suomenlinna until the end of April 2018, tying in loose ends and coming up with conclusions.

Syowia is not planning on performing anything whilst in Finland. She is currently in an incubatory mode, and the location of Suomenlinna works for that. She is currently at a stage of figuring out her next step, and is taking advantage of the secluded nature of the island. Her performance project of many years, Between Us, involves a full crew of 5-7 people, which is why a performance at this moment of thinking and brewing new ideas would be difficult and distracting.

A performance in three chapters: the Between Us Trilogy Syowia’s ongoing body of works is called Between Us. It is a trilogy with three characters. It also involves a fourth addition in the form of an installation, some body prints and a book about the whole complete body of works and its coming to be. The first and second part of the trilogy have been presented already (the first chapter was performed through crowdfunding already in 2014), but the third one is still looking for the right time and place. The performance (in three chapters) tells the stories of three characters: a businesswoman, a domestic worker and a man in a Kaunda suit. In the first chapter of the performance the character of the businesswoman is walking against a wall repeatedly. If you’re in the way, she doesn’t register that you’re there. She does that until she unravels. Then she undresses and wears domestic worker’s clothes and becomes the domestic worker. In the second chapter the businesswoman is very robotic, and the domestic worker repeatedly dresses her and undresses her. In the third chapter the businesswoman tears apart a Kaunda suit.

  The Kaunda suit is a nationalistic symbol. In the 60s and 70s they were worn on the African continent by statesmen and everyday business men, celebrating post independent area pride. The Kaunda suit is suitable for the climate but still very western, featuring short sleeves but no tie. There is no female version of the Kaunda suit. The Kaunda suit has experienced a power shift in more recent years: these days it is worn by employees, school bus drivers and so on, and is no longer associated with power. When the businesswoman tears apart the Kaunda suit, she tears many layers of nationalist history, and even patriarchy.

 The man who is wearing the Kaunda suit just sits and watches; he is just an observer. In the second chapter, he is not even there, apart from his suit. The performance features multiple layers of watching an observing. Double sided mirrors are often present in Syowia’s installations, and people are looking at each other knowingly or unknowingly.  

The domestic woman is always cleaning and fixing things, throughout all the chapters. There is, of course, a different power shift existing in the domestic woman’s uniform: she is a grown woman dressed in a young girl’s school uniform. As the uniforms are as central to the performance as the characters themselves, Syowia has exhibited the uniforms as an installation.

  Erratic body prints

While working at HIAP, Syowia has been extremely interested in making prints with her body, using materials of various kinds for each of the chapters of the trilogy. The body prints reflect on the movements of one of the characters in the performance, the business woman. For example, as the third and final chapter is about regeneration, it would make sense to use ashes for the prints that refer to the third, regenerative chapter. Syowia has realised that people relate to ashes in a negative way, as it brings to them images of cremation and death, and death is seen as a very negative thing. Syowia, however, sees ashes as regrowth, rebirth and regeneration, the Phoenix-bird being a better-known symbol for this idea.

 Another material altogether is needed for the second chapter, which is why Syowia has been experimenting with lots of different materials and pigments to see what fits. The body movements of the business woman in the second chapter are connected to why she is such an erratic person in the first chapter – to what made her that way.

 For her body prints, Syowia mixes the material with some glue and water, then uses her own body to make prints on paper. She has been experimenting with various materials. Ashes are nice for their regenerative thematic, but leave little detail of the skin. Black pigment and graphite work well, but do not fit the character at this stage. Syowia has also been thinking about using coffee and tea as materials, as pigment – the colonial reference would work well in the context of the performance. The area where the business woman’s character comes from is a tea plantation area.

 Apart from experimenting with materials, Syowia has also been experimenting with and thinking about presentation. Some of the body prints have been made on tracing paper, which becomes wrinkly as it dries. The wrinkled paper would not work so well in an installation, but Syowia thinks it might look interesting presented between glass or within a book that she has also been planning.

  Invisible inspiration

 Another thing that Syowia has been planning while at HIAP, is the making of an explanatory book, that would make her work and all its layers a little easier to read. The book would ideally be handmade, slightly larger than the average book format, and it will include documentation of performances, prints, some clothing and texts.

 Syowia would also like to include in the book some of the stories and histories, which have become an inspiration – for example, the story of a woman Syowia interviewed a while ago for another project. The woman had no identification card and was always identified through her father. Now she is extremely self-sufficient. Her life experiences are also a power shift, just like the power shifts reflected by the costumes in Syowia’s work.

 Also, parts of the everyday routines and rituals make it into Syowia’s work. For example, underwear washing in public is considered very taboo in Kenya, and drying underwear in public is something that must never be done. This is why in a performance of the first chapter of the trilogy, there was underwear washing.

 This is all invisible research and inspiration, which is why a book would be a good platform to share it with the audience.

 Another story that angers Syowia is that of the rape and attempted murder of a young girl a few years ago. The girl was lucky enough to be found and rescued. However, the first ruling the judge gave to the perpetrators was for them to cut grass as punishment. Thankfully, the women’s rights movement jumped in and changed the punishment. However, situations like this are enough to make anyone erratic, as happened to the business woman in Syowia’s performance trilogy. The woman becomes erratic and then robotic, and she gets partial retaliation as the man, the patriotic and nationalistic symbol, is torn down.

 In the performance, the Kaunda suit gets sewn back together, but it is never the same. Syowia believes that history changes and shapes a person. It changes nations even. People and nations can be fixed but can never be the same again after hurtful events.

  Personal and universal mythologies

 Syowia’s draws inspiration and histories from both Kenya and Germany, where her mother is from. She also studied in Chicago, so a lot of her framework within the art world context comes from that scene. During a brief moment in her 20s, she felt that she had to choose between her Kenyan and her German heritage, but as she grew up, the two became more harmonised. She feels that not everything one does needs to identify geographically, yet accepts that in her work a certain Germanic and Bantu aesthetic is present.

 As her work focuses on narratives, memory and DNA, part of her culture is referenced in the work. However, what she finds most interesting is that in different cultures, the same mythologies are shared – the same stories, perhaps under different names. Those are the mythologies and histories that Syowia wants to reference in her work.

Read more:

http://www.syowiakyambi.com

[hiaphelsinki]

Notes from the Kick-Off Event of the HIAP & Mustarinda Collaboration: post-fossil transition

BY ALEKSANDRA KISKONEN

A couple of weeks ago, on Friday evening the 6th of April a group of nearly one hundred enthusiasts from various fields  gathered in HIAP to discuss the post-fossil future in the kick-off event of the new 3-year companionship and learning process of HIAP & Mustarinda.

To introduce, Pauliina Leikas, Antti Majava and Paavo Järvensivu talked about activities, experiences and experiments in the context of Mustarinda. After that curator Jenni Nurmenniemi brought us to the main question of the evening “What can a cultural organization do to accelerate the transition to post-fossil culture?” by sharing some selected learnings from the Frontiers in Retreat project (http://www.frontiersinretreat.org/). 

The project focused on the question how ecological discourses and contemporary art practices intersect and created a starting point for the HIAP & Mustarinda partnership which is now taken to the next level by challenging institutional and personal practices.

Following the presentations small groups were formed around the three main themes of the project: food, energy and transport. Passion, concentration and laughter filled the air. For the sharing session each group picked a few key points (ideas, examples, concerns) they wanted to emphasize. Different approaches, layers and dynamics were present. Shift in paradigm, time and social perspective stood out; questions piled up; more or less concrete solutions were proposed.

Group 1 (Transport)

1. Change in thinking (in general)

your own personal way is met with how things are actually organized, life style change in your personal and work life

If we measure things based on "time", we need to do things fast  (-> we e.g. fly more), time becomes a constrain

2. Change in practices

3. Practical means

Optimizing current system

Social perspective: who does all that flying; some people never fly, some people fly all the time

A tunnel is the fastest way from one surface to another

Free train travelling?

Getting fulfilment through shamanistic practices and/or drugs so that we won't need to get gratification from traveling to all these places that you can only reach by plane, far and exotic; what does that say about us? 

Group 2 (Energy aka end the patriarchy)

1.      Extinction

Should we continue living/existing? What does sustainable mean? What are we sustaining? What are we trying to maintain?

2.      God and energy and the spirit and the terminology of energy and evil

Are we bad people and should we repent and receive mercy?

What structural reasons have made us bad?

3.      Time

Greek time, 2 different kind of time: kronos and kairos - momentum time, different scales and measurements

"We have to do something" and maybe we have the "means".

Connection between energy and time

 How does energy consumption relate to time, temporalities, being busy?

Business of life, energy weather, capitalism

Structural change needed ; inequality; not possible to decrease energy consumption

Group 3 (Food)

1. Urine and feces, how astronauts consume their own waste 2. Insect farming and its benefits 3. Farming, working with the prison 4. Guided bike tours to educate people about wild food (berries, mushrooms...) 5. Recipe cook books and cooking courses for wild veggies and insects in Mustarinda/HIAP 6. Fermentation of food during the winter; growing food in the studios/in dark spaces (cellars), sprouting 7. The front yard of HIAP transformed into a garden, residents taking care of

 Group 4 (Energy)

1. Time and different temporalities

2. Complexifying the way we look at our environment, making things a bit more complicated; co-dependencies 

3. Why-ing, or because-ing, asking why all the time, like children

4. We make this happen very fast, but we wanted to give a lot of time for things to happen in a non-hurried space.

How to organize events and how to build slowness into projects and personal practice?

5. Time in organizations

How to use time/disperse activities?

Case specific thought about deadline or 'deadlining culture'

Clinging on to traditional forms of art work or performance; what is an art work?

Coffee drinking as an accelerationist practice

Project based funding, working structures and time structures; how to get rid of?

How to come up with a terminology that disrupts the project-based lingo

Group 5 (Energy)

1.      The possibility of art institutions or actors gathering together and forming larger than oneself collective action to challenge or push larger institutions/actors dealing with energy e.g. politicians or energy companies (collective action)

Individual choices are not the way: how to get to the structures? Can art institutions challenge other actors?

Direct action with artistic ideas

Identifying the players and making them visible

Pushing for a more radical concept of sustainability (elasticity, cyclicity)

More money=more choices=more energy

2. Valid and important to work on all scales (micro and macro) on all fronts and at all times

3. Possible futures

Who is a subject, who is an object? (privileges)

Who is left out, who is creating futures

What are their bases and assumptions?

Group 6 (Energy)

1.    "It's about everything", a holistic view

All the shifts should take place in environmental terms

2.    Decentralization and democratization of energy

Selling energy to the network and producing your own should be the future

Centralized system is just making a bunch of money

Use geo-thermal heating

3.    Shift in values, paradigmatic shift

Definition of good life; e.g. sharing as a practice; to lower consumption, to increase happiness

Depower from our actions would power our leisure (e.g. gym powering sauna)

Group 7 (Transport)

1. Mindset; how to change from our present way of thinking to another

2. Bodily thinking (thinking through our body)

What can you carry?

How much energy we consume in our body

How it might change the perception to find the natural rhythm of living and thinking, building and creating; does everything have to be quick and fast?

How to create organic machine to transport us

3. Reducing consumption is the key to everything

4. Time and the structure of wanting to move all the time.

We need to learn to enjoy the more local culture and transport and not only the ones on the other side of the globe; focusing transporting yourself to a small area

The concept of locality; is local less valuable than international?

Is virtual reality a solution?

5. Do we still want to have vehicles; weather as a force/power/source for movement 

Group 8 (no theme)

1.      Frustration related to attempts to bring forward ecological 'ways of doing things' in construction and real estate

The clear power structure against these attempts and how it is often all male

Differences for people who don't own their own property and how to explain the financing and material and construction decision making process

How to influence the people making decisions?

2. Waiting for some people to retire; stopping from changing the society

3. We can't win the game by repeating business victories or the same old reasonings; we have too much good will and not enough readiness to do it among us, we have to get it done 

Group 9 (Food)

1. Transition from industrial food to small scale food production

2. Urban environments and industrialization and the difficulties of small companies, labour, exhaustion, laws, gender and who ends up doing all the work

3. Thinking of soils and with soils, systems and ecosystems

Nurturing ecosystems. not just exploitation

Thinking about permaculture, caring

How to cultivate healthy system for humans and others

Not just function, also pleasure 

4. Conservation and hunting and meat; livestock and the status of livestock 

The goal of the event was as much to create and share tools for the post-fossil future as to come together, map out interests and connect kindred spirits. If you didn´t make it this time, don´t worry - there will be new ones. This spring is reserved for community building as well as the upcoming summer months. If you feel like becoming part of the project, let us know by e-mailing to [email protected] or pop in to share your ideas in person e.g. on the 22th of May when the Open Studios event takes place in HIAP. The first proper year of programme will be the year of 2019. In autumn 2018 there will be an open call for residencies related to the project. Stay tuned!

[hiaphelsinki]

DIEGO BRUNO

AN INTERVIEW BY ATHANASÍA AARNIOSUO

Temple Bar Gallery + Studios in Dublin, Ireland has collaborated with HIAP for eleven years, supporting a total of 17 artists and curators from Ireland and Finland to undertake new work through the exchange programme. Diego Bruno’s seven-week residency period in Dublin was based around production and post-production for a new film and publication.

  AA: The film that you worked on while in Dublin, focuses on investigating a specific location. What made you want to work on this project in Dublin, which is not the area the film concerns itself with?

DB: I received the invitation to go to Dublin 2 weeks after completing the shooting for the film. It felt a good idea to go to a unrelated context that, on the other hand offered the time to focus on the editing of the material. I suppose, that unfamiliar surroundings, new set of references around the material I was working with, was envisioned by me as the possibility to push the editing, the material and the whole film towards formal explorations that I wanted to work with, surpassing the informational.

AA: Were your working routines different during your time in Dublin? Some artists report more productivity yet an increased ability to relax while at an artists’ residency. DB: I did have more time to work than what is my routine in Helsinki. Specially the afternoons, as in HKI I spend them with my son, there I had the opportunity to keep on working. AA: Was you work influenced by the time you spent working in Dublin? If yes, in what ways? DB: Yes, it was, the editing process got accelerated to deep levels of productive reflection on the material. I am sure that showed on the final work. That was possible due to the intensive time work I was allowed to enter.  Another particular influence was an archive at the Trinity College to which I had access, and which became very relevant for the piece. AA: Do you plan on returning to Dublin? Perhaps showing your work there DB: Yes, I wish, and there are some conversations about it. 

AA: How do you feel you benefited from the exchange? DB: The time and focus given to the work process was of intense benefit. There was specific material I gather in Dublin itself for the film, that became relevant as well. But also, I got to know other artists and curators, engaging in dialogues of great interest, and with whom we did already collaborated on some occasion, after the residency. AA: What are you currently working on? Are you continuing to develop any of your ideas which may have first come to you while in Ireland? DB: Right now, I work on two new film productions and a publication. They are meant to be first presented in Berlin and Stockholm. The works revolve around ideas of legislation, the law, riots, crisis of representation and madness. I can’t say the ideas came from Ireland, they are rather a development of a constant investigation, thinking and practice.

[hiaphelsinki]

Laura Spring and Elina Laitinen selected for design residency programme 2018

HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme, the British Council, Helsinki Design Week, the Design Museum and Aalto University are happy to announce the participants in this year’s HIAP design residency programme.

The selected designers-in-residence are Laura Spring (Glasgow) and Elina Laitinen (Helsinki). They will participate in a programme comprising two work periods, a research phase in May, and a production and presentation phase in August and September that is coordinated with the Helsinki Design Week.

Laura Spring. Photo: Caro Weiss

Laura Spring is a textile designer and maker in Glasgow. She is a graduate of the Glasgow School of Art where she was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in graphic design in 2002. Laura works primarily as a print-maker creating bold, graphic designs in her independent studio. Staking out the correspondence between the hand-made and the batch-produced, she is at the same time a researcher of historic production cultures that she activates again as the base of her creative production. Laura has worked in Finland before, exploring the traditional Finnish weaving technique täkänä. In the design residency Laura is planning to deepen the connections she established with Finnish weavers earlier, and cooperate with experts in the Finnish textile, design and craft realms to explore similarities between Finland and Scotland and develop the exchange in the field of contemporary craft-oriented production.

Elina Laitinen

Elina Laitinen is a fashion designer working at the junction of art and design. She graduated from the Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture with a Master of Arts in 2016. Elina has been awarded the Grand Prize of the Jury at the Hyères Fashion Festival in 2012 for a collection she designed with Siiri Raasakka and Tiia Sirén. In her work Elina explores new fashion design practices that pay attention to the larger social implication of productive work. She has researched the clothing traditions in Finland of the 1920s to the 1970s and is currently investigating the ways in which clothes were produced and used in the times before mass production dominated the markets. In the residency programme Elina plans to research home sewing culture and examine the relation that fashion designers can build onto it.

The HIAP design residency programme was originally established in 2012 as part of the World Design Capital programme in Helsinki and is produced in partnership with the British Council, Helsinki Design Week, the Design Museum and Aalto University. The programme is curated by HIAP associate curators Martin Born and Rosa Tolnov Clausen together with the British Council’s Design Programme Manager Gianluca Amadei. The theme of this year’s edition is Arranging Practice: Proximity, Distance, Instance. The designers-in-residence will present their work and research in events at the Design Museum in May and as part of the Helsinki Design Week in September.

[hiaphelsinki]

EVITA VASILJEVA: THESE HEAVY HUMAN EMOTIONS

AN INTERVIEW BY ATHANASÍA AARNIOSUO

Evita Vasiljeva's work mainly consists of big sculptures, made from heavy materials of varying textures and surfaces. Next to concrete sculptures, Evita also exhibits posters printed on paper, cardboard sculptures, and sculptures from latex. She sees her sculptures as comprising different glimpses and fragments. Her method of working with collecting, collage and research forms an abstract language that can give way to the production of human emotion, subconscious psychologies and an altering view on physical space. The materials she often chooses to use give gravity and names to intangible motions. Evita describes the materials she works with, such as rubber, metal, wood and concrete, as “earthy.” She believes these earthy materials form a base for where we are now, for everything that surrounds us, tying us to our environment.

In Evita’s exhibitions, all works are presented on the floor, so that the sculptures are at a level with the viewers – exhibits and viewers, humans and not, everyone is equal. Often Evita works in the exhibition space. She starts with very little: ideas and sensations that she wants to visualise, and just starts building. Her sculptures are site-specific, in a way. This idea or sensation, the starting point, can be something seemingly small. For example, her sculpture Manhours in Headquarters began taking shape from an interest in the word ‘headquarters.’ Similarly, the sculpture Hormones, came about when Evita put noise sensitive lights inside two sculptures, which react to the audience. Like hormones, Evita cannot control the sculptures as they change from viewer to viewer.

There is an intensity to Evita’s sculptures as a result of the often-employed combination of opposites. For instance, the sculptures seem simultaneously heavy and vulnerable. The sculptures’ mass and the gravity that grounds them, seems to come from errors and coincidences. Their weight and gravity, and, on the other hand, their breaks and their cracks are in cahoots with, not against each other.

Evita has much respect for colour, due to her background in painting. She used to paint a lot, but she realised somewhere along the way, that she enjoyed making the frame itself more than what should traditionally go in the frame. The language of her sculptures can be seen as modernist, with its references to gravity and architectural elements – however, Evita stresses that she uses architectural forms as drawing materials, not as a direct reference or a means to an end. During her stay at Suomenlinna, Evita will continue to explore her interest in architectural forms and shapes, which are abundant on the island. She would like to get into a mode of working and research, where the end result is not of most importance.

  AA: What are some of the initial ideas that you start building on, to create your sculptures?

EV: I collect with my eyes, sit in a ferry and look outside. Sometimes situations or forms I see on a daily basis strike out and make me curious. I can’t get them out of my mind. Then I want to understand them through work, to reconstruct the essentials of them without depicting them directly as they are. It is like a distillation of its matter though another form, gravity and sensation. For example, I got the inspiration for Hormones, when got a new studio outside of Amsterdam. I had to take a train every day, which broke my usual patterns of navigation. I started to pay attention to rails, train traffic lights, red, blue, white. Lights had their color codes, which fascinated me. So I wanted to extract the light and its round form, and see where it can bring me. I write a lot, make notes, think a lot until I get sick of it all and realise that thought process doesn’t create an experience I want in my work, and I need to use materials. I am intrigued by the processes around daily life, thoughts that cross the mind. I have been trying to find a formula where my sculptures start, how to begin them faster. As soon as I think I have found the recipe, I don’t trust it. There is no recipe. You think you know, but you don’t know. My best work comes from a feeling when I give up, let myself be defeated. Then I start to follow what is in my hands, without applying ideas on them. The mind and words can only go a certain length.

  AA: At what point do you start envisioning all the various parts of your sculptures together, and in relation to the exhibition space?

EV: First, I make separate sculptures that seem urgent at the time. There are boiling ideas that seek for some daily light. I work on those parts first. After, I ask myself, okay, how does it relate to a bigger picture? How can I make this work welcome and comfortable? Normally, if I know ahead where I will be exhibiting, unconsciously “parts” take something from the future presentation space, weather it is a color, surface, curves or ceiling height. Sometimes even I am surprised at how something ends up fitting in the space without directly pushing it that way. I believe our body is super smart and collects information around us that we are not aware of.  

 AA: What challenges do you sometimes face when presenting your works?

EV: Challenges can be practical ones, how to materialise the desired volume, weight and concentration. I want too many contradictions, which often is impossible to reach. I want things big, but light, I want them to look heavy, but not to face the challenge of lifting them. These practicalities quite often shape my work, for example, how big is the door, is there water, can I drill into the wall? Then there are contextual challenges. I used to be very upset and scared when people didn’t get it. It took me a while to realise that contemporary art can divide people into those who are comfortable with the unknown and those who shut down if there are no answers presented to them, or that art is not dealing with aesthetics as they know it. I am very happy that there are artists who are not afraid to be misunderstood, look for their ways of expression, something new, something risky, something we can’t label yet. So yes, there’s a challenge to stay calm and focused. I have learned that despite my mum not liking what I do, there are people who love it. The challenge is to keep the trust and motivation and to move in a direction that is not fixed, hard to name and not so profitable.

 AA: Some of your sculptures resemble ruined cities. Is this an actual reference, or am I imagining things?

EV: Yes, please do imagine things. I like that. The work is open for interpretations and can be read from different perspectives. The viewer adds their perspectives to it. For me it is not about ruined cities, but rather the state of construction and deconstruction, not a fixed state. It could be a left over from the future or a foundation from the past, where the rest will be constructed later. Not touching something is as much as touching it. I like it when works are not connected to the past or the future, they are not finished dressing or just got undressed.

 AA: Is there a relationship between nature and your work?

EV: I rather see it as a nature of things. I have lived most of my life in cities and see my surroundings as a manmade nature. We make walls, we make chairs to sit near the walls. What nature are we talking about? If we talk about nature that is outside my studio door at Suomenlinna, there is some relationship, but not the tree and rocks as we see them. Plants and trees are so beautiful, they are perfect, so I don’t touch them. There is nothing I can add to them. I use processed, human made materials that come from nature, like paper, wood, screws, glue, metal, clay, rubber. I try to avoid plastic, for example, but I do use it sometimes. I don’t like to be very strict about art and put any strict rules on it. Sometimes a plastic bag can be better than a cotton bag, depends on its use. But yes, I do think about “basic” materials, such as wood, metal, concrete, rubber, paper, cardboard. I try not to hide their qualities or change their nature. If plaster breaks, so be it. I do respect light, how it reveals colours and forms, and weathering of things, rust, decay, break, wear down, where the colour pigments are coming from, a green tone of bacteria growing on concrete. Nature creates beautiful combinations of colours and forms, which inspires me a lot.

 AA: You said that people are sometimes surprised to find out that your works were made by a woman. Why do you think that is?

EV: I really don’t know. Maybe because some of my sculptures are heavy and big. Men like to build big bridges and skyscrapers.  

 AA: What are you currently working on?

EV: A text called Terms and Conditions. It might be a title of a sculpture or installation maybe. At this moment I am gathering fragments, make notes, write, sketch, layout ideas for new works. I made a ceramic collage experiment with transfer prints. I want to experiment more with ceramics (clay, colour, image). I’m fascinated by the stress ceramics undergo, while drying and firing. At the moment I want to open several doors, see where they might lead me. I’m still deciding if in May I will present my studio as a laboratory of thoughts and processes or crystalise it to a set of works suited the location.

[hiaphelsinki]

HIAP participates in the Gwangju Biennale Pavilion Project

HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme has been invited to realise a pavilion for the Gwangju Biennale Pavilion Project of 2018 along with Palais de Tokyo and Philippine Contemporary Art Network.

HIAP Pavilion’s exhibition and public programme, titled Fictional Frictions, sets out to explore shifting understandings of borders. Following HIAP’s tentacular way of operating, the exhibition builds a bridge for artists and thinkers from Finland and South Korea to gently collide and coexist for a moment. The pavilion is curated by Jenni Nurmenniemi (HIAP) who has in recent years worked extensively on Frontiers in Retreat, a five-year project on art and ecology.

Artists Nestori Syrjälä and Elina Vainio with Curator Jenni Nurmenniemi. Photo: Sergio Urbina

The exhibition investigates diverse mechanisms of boundary making, and fosters unexpected entanglements. Finnish artists Elina Vainio (b.1981) and Nestori Syrjälä (b.1983) will examine humans’ influences and ways of relating to ecological transformations.

Both artists work across sculpture, installation, video, and performance. For Gwangju Biennale, they will realise new, context-specific iterations of their recent installations. In the following weeks, HIAP will announce the names of the participating Korean artists.

HIAP Pavilion is realised as part of the 12th Gwangju Biennale Pavilion Project, with the support of Gwangju Biennale Foundation. The pavilion is realised in partnership with Frame Contemporary Art Finland.

The 12th Gwangju Biennale runs from September 7 until 11 November 2018 in Gwangju, South Korea. Referencing Benedict Anderson’s famous study of nationalism, Imagined Communities, the 12th Gwangju Biennale’s theme, Imagined Borders, discusses a contemporary phenomenon in depth, wherein national and geopolitical borders are being reorganized after globalisation.

[hiaphelsinki]

DAVID TER-OGANYAN

AN INTERVIEW BY ATHANASÍA AARNIOSUO

David Ter-Oganyan worked at HIAP during the month of February 2018. David’s art consists of drawing, painting, objects, video, photography, digital art, performative actions. From a young age, he has been part of several actionist movements, making work that combines art with political anarchism.

  AA: How effective is art as a form of protest?

 DT-O: In the Russian society leaning towards puritan values, simple graphic images can become an effective means of provocation.

  AA: Your political commentary seems quite subtle. Why have you chosen such a discreet method of protest, compared to an aggressive, frontal attack?

 DT-O: The authorities don’t know how to react to art, and the mechanisms of censorship have not been yet finalized since the Russian society in the 1990s retained its secularism.

  AA: You have dealt with censorship in the past, when working with public organisations. This is proof that there is a need for your art and for your protest. What are the issues you are currently addressing in your work?

 DT-O: My works have often been taken off from the exhibition halls and my exhibitions have been cancelled. Some museums displayed a sign that the exhibition was for only for 18+. I had a lot of problems with censorship, which is why I address it in some of my works. It is difficult to find a place to exhibit them because there is a current law punishing extremism, which qualifies them either as slogans or as pornographic images. As a result, nobody wants to take the risk.

 This situation led to the revival of underground art, which nobody can openly see. It can only be seen at house exhibitions, in personal blogs or at underground galleries.

 People in Putin’s Russia are afraid of everything, even images. One glance at a picture of an ass or penis is considered not only as rude but as dangerous and can result in public disturbance.

  AA: You are an internationally successful artist. Exhibitions aside, how do you reach your audiences, especially through new media and the internet? Do you blog? Are you active on any internet platforms? In which media do you feel most comfortable?

 DT-O: I love making pictures in my phone, in the street, in the public transport, on my knee using the cheapest and most primitive means of creating, such as children’s markers. My works are small. I paint them and put them on my blog almost every day. My followers are mostly Moscow and Russian artists.

  AA: Finally, in what ways did the peaceful environment of HIAP help you focus on your work?

 DT-O: I painted every day during my stay in Helsinki and published the works in my blog.

[hiaphelsinki]

SPEAKING SPACE WITH CAROLINE DOOLIN

Caroline Doolin from Dublin, Ireland, is working on the island of Suomenlinna for six weeks. Her practice is based on moving image installations, film, animation and sound. Her work is extremely imaginative, and it tries to interpret and translate spaces and thoughts foreign to humans. Her work often combines a voice-over narration with animation and film, and it is usually presented in an installation context in a physical, constructed space. Caroline’s work Fault Bound Bodies, for example, is described as a narrated interspecies love story, in which the story evolves from the imaginary perspective of a geothermal site. In a way, it is a cheesy and sentimental interpretation of original material, in which the combination of animation and voice-over narration manages to give an almost documentary and scientific feeling.

In other works, such as Of oil and origin, Caroline uses the same technique of combining film, voice-over narration and animation to tell a story from the space’s perspective, the space being where the story takes place. How does space experience time, for instance? She admits that human vocabulary has its limits, and trying to describe in human vocabulary the experiences of something altogether different, such as space, can be challenging. “I don’t speak space the way space speaks space.” Caroline sometimes installs her film work differently in different contexts. That way she feels she can communicate different aspects of the research behind the work. By changing the installation, she feels that she can orchestrate the experience of the viewer more than just a screening of her work could. While at HIAP, Caroline is planning to keep working in film, but she is also thinking about moving away from linear narratives.

AA: Caroline, what are you most hoping to accomplish during your HIAP residency? CD: During my residency at HIAP I am researching and filming for a new video installation. The work will draw on Suomenlinna’s status as a UNESCO heritage site, using that status as a lens through which to explore the island’s everyday and perhaps overlooked aspects. AA: Your work often deals with questions of energy, physical and emotional. Are you looking forward to discussing these issues with your fellow HIAP residents? CD: I do look forward to discussing these subjects while at HIAP, particularly in relation to the varied interests and perspectives of the other residents. Already during my time here, some brief conversations have arisen around these issues and more broadly around the intersection of the human and the ‘non-human’. These conversations have often led to questions of what might be suitable vocabularies to discuss these concerns, without resorting to anthropocentric categories such as human and ‘non-human’.  One really interesting thing for me has been to hear from residents and staff about the nuance the Finnish language affords such discussions, which the English language may not. I am interested to find out more about this during the remainder of my stay. AA: In your work, even though there’s a narrator who takes the story forward, there is no protagonist in the traditional sense. Can a space be a protagonist? Can rocks? CD: I think a space or rocks can be protagonists, but as you say: not in the traditional sense. However, the idea of a protagonist, in its most restricted sense, is limiting in that it emphasizes individual rather than interrelated experiences as the central or driving force of a narrative. There are restrictions to how effectively the tools used to articulate a human or anthropomorphised protagonist in one location can be otherwise or elsewhere applied. In the sense that a protagonist is specific to and motivated by their own context, location and history; rocks, birds, plants, etc. are also context specific and nuanced. So the question for me is not so much whether or not a space or rocks can be protagonists, but what are the means through which those protagonists ‘speak’ to and with an audience who do not necessarily share their ‘vocabularies’. This provides some of the rationale behind my initial proposal to HIAP and my attempt to find new (for me) approaches to making video installation without a linear, narrative structure. AA: Where do you start, when making a new work? The scripted narration? CD: In previous works, I have started with a long period of research throughout which I was writing and rewriting the scripted narration. At a later stage in this process I would begin to film at particular locations and this in turn would influence further edits of the narration. However, I think that this approach has reached a point of stagnation for me and poses many limitations on how to think about a particular location or material. During my residency at HIAP I am developing new work without a scripted narration. For this work I began to film almost immediately on arrival at HIAP. I travel to Suomenlinna daily or every second day. I walk around the island and I record various things that I observe. In the evenings or on the days that I do not travel to Suomenlinna I review this footage, edit it together with sound and decide what other footage I might need to gather on my next trip to the island. Without the structure of a pre-defined script it is a slow process – one which is frequently permeable to chance and external influence - but one which offers many fruitful and positive frustrations.  

[hiaphelsinki]

Frontiers in Retreat: Looking Back and Looking Forward

Edge Effects Mustarinda, 16/06 – 13/08/2017 Elina Vainio, Tools buried in Future, 2017. Photo: Salla Lahtinen

This spring marks the finale of the five-year project Frontiers in Retreat (FiR) and it is time for wrapping up the project: we are looking back, but at the same time looking forward. Many of the processes that started or grew as part of Frontiers in Retreat will continue beyond the lifecycle  of the project. The pluralistic legacy of FiR has left its traces in numerous artworks, books, the website and blog, and constantly developing practices and debates.

There are still things to look forward taking place in the coming months: on April 27–28, FiR partner organisation Jutempus will organise a Zooetics symposium at MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA. The programme, with the complete list of speakers, will be announced in Mid-March. In Helsinki, the gem of the spring is the launch of the Frontiers in Retreat book, edited by Tracey Warr and Jenni Nurmenniemi. The partner residency organisations are also gathering their physical archives of the project. While Frontiers producer Jaana Eskola is in charge of the project’s management and reporting operation, HIAP’s Salla Lahtinen, who has been working with the project’s communications since 2015, is collecting visual and textual documentations as well as objects into a physical archive – a time capsule of sorts – to be permanently placed at HIAP. In collaboration with Mustarinda, HIAP is also taking a leap towards the post-fossil future with a start of a new 3-year project, which in many ways is continuation of Frontiers here at HIAP. Thanks to our long-term supporter Kone Foundation for making all this possible.

Then a glimpse into June–December 2017, when FiR partner organisations realised a seven-chaptered series of expanded exhibitions, taking place at the nodes of the FiR network across the edges of Europe. Thanks to HIAP’s going exchanges in South Korea, our edition of the exhibition migrated to Art Sonje Center, Seoul. The exhibitions, titled Edge Effects, took diverse forms that reflected the aims, circumstances, and ecological contexts of each Frontiers organisation. In the end, the Edge Effects satellites happened both online and offline, indoors and outdoors, and as series of events. HIAP would like to thank each and everyone who made the Edge Effects exhibition series possible – thank you artists, partners, funders and visitors!

Very special thanks goes to the artists who have taken part in the numerous Frontiers in Retreat activities throughout the past years: Bartaku, Quelic Berga, Brett Bloom, Sylvia Grace Borda, Company, Gints Gabrans, Fernando Garcia-Dory, Kati Gausmann, Carl Giffney, Tue Greenfort, Terike Haapoja, Hanna Husberg, Radhildur Ingadottir, Saara-Maria Kariranta, Mari Keski-Korsu, Elena Mazzi, Nabb+Teeri, mirko nikolić, Tuula Närhinen, Khaled Ramadan, Anna Rubio, Joanes Simon-Perret, Richard Skelton, Tracey Warr, Simon Yuill.

We also would like to express our gratitude to our wonderful project partners: Johanna Fredriksson, Pauliina Leikas, and the whole Mustarinda collective; Nuno Sacramento, Sam Trotman, Yvonne Billimore, Sara Gallie, Eden Jolly & others from SSW; Lluís Llobet, Cesca Gelabert, Arnau Llobet and Pere Báscones from CAN Farrera; Signe Pucena, Ance Ausmane and Ugis Pucens from SERDE; Ljudmila Stratimirović, Dejan Ubović and Aleksandra Djordjević from KC Grad; Tinna Guðmundsdóttir and Litten Nyström from Skaftfell; Tracey Warr, Viktorija Siaulyte, Nomeda Urboniene and Gediminas Urbonas from Jutempus; as well as all our amazing current and former colleagues at HIAP who have been closely working with the project. Kudos to the original working group at HIAP (Taru Elfving, Irmeli Kokko, Jaakko Rustanius, Jenni Nurmenniemi) that initiated and conceptualised the project in 2013. There is a long list of great people and organisations that have contributed to our project over the past five years. Warmest thanks to all!

Below you can also find the complete list of the Edge Effects artists, curators and contributors, partners, funders and co-funders.

Kiitos – Thank you!

Best Wishes, Jenni Nurmenniemi, Jaana Eskola & Salla Lahtinen (FiR team / HIAP) Juha Huuskonen (Director / HIAP)

Edge Effects Skaftfell, 17/06 – 24/09/2017 On left 'Towards a Frontier (book and music)' (2016-17) by Richard Skelton, and on the right series of works 'mountain print' (2014) by Kati Gausmann. Photo: Nikolas Grabar

Edge Effects Scottish Sculpture Workshop SSW in CCA Glasgow and venues across the city,  27 – 30/07/2017 Deep Listening Workshop by Brett Bloom and Ximera Alarcon. Photo: Ross Fraser McLean/ Studio RoRo for Scottish Sculpture Workshop's Edge Effects Programme

Edge Effects The Interdisciplinary Art Group SERDE, 09/08 – 30/09/2017 Photo: SERDE

Edge Effects – Active Earth by HIAP, Art Sonje Center, 07/11–03/12/2017 Elena Mazzi & Sara Tirelli: A Fragmented World, 3-channel video installation, 2016. Photo: Yeonje Kim

Edge Effects - Serbia by Kulturni Centar GRAD, 27/11 – 03/12/2017 Tijana Radenković. Photo: KC GRAD

Edge Effects: Natural Movements at Farrera’s Edge by Centre d'Art i Natura online exhibition

Edge Effects, June-December 2017 List of contributors

frontiersinretreat.org/edge-effects

Edge Effects artists and contributors: Ara Ahn, Ximena Alarcon, Maaria Alén, Bartaku, Quelic Berga, Vladimir Bjeličić, Brett Bloom, Sylvia Grace Borda, Mele Broomes, Charismatic Megafauna, Yoomi Choi, Company, Dušica Dražić, Taru Elfving, Jaana Eskola, Gints Gabrāns, Fernando Garcia-Dory (INLAND), Kati Gausmann, Carl Giffney, Gyepi Sisters, Bora Hong, Ráðhildur Ingadóttir, Joosung Kang, Saara-Maria Kariranta, Mari Keski-Korsu, Haeju Kim, Salla Lahtinen, Maarit Laihonen, Tuomas A. Laitinen, Kyounghee Lee, Elena Mazzi, Nabb+Teeri, mirko nikolić, Jenni Nurmenniemi, Tuula Närhinen, Áine O’Dwyer, Jaakko Pallasvuo, Mina Piščević, Tijana Radenković, Anna Rubio, Petri Ruikka, Nuno Sacramento, Joanes Simon-Perret, Rohwajeong, Richard Skelton, Vjeko Sumić, Sara Tirelli, Elina Vainio, Tracey Warr, Alex Wilde (Open Jar Collective), Hyejin Yeo, Simon Yuill

Edge Effects Exhibition concept: Jenni Nurmenniemi and Taru Elfving

Edge Effects Curators: Mustarinda: MUSTARINDA; Skaftfell: Tinna Guðmundsdóttir; SERDE: Signe Pucena, Uģis Pucens, design by Ance Ausmane, Uģis Pucens; SSW: Yvonne Billimore and Sam Trotman; HIAP: Jenni Nurmenniemi; KC GRAD: Ljudmila Stratimirović; CAN Farrera: Lluís Sabadell Artiga, Pere Bascones, Lluís Llobet, Marta Prunera

Edge Effects Co-curators: Edge Effects – Active Earth Learning Sessions: Bora Hong, Haeju Kim, Hyejin Yeo

Edge Effects Partners: Scottish Sculpture Workshop presented Edge Effects in Glasgow as a part of Intentions in Action – Public Engagement programme at the CCA Glasgow, and in collaboration with Counterflows, Creative Carbon Scotland and Project Cafe. In Edinburgh SSW partnered up with Edinburgh Art Festival. HIAP produced it’s exhibition in Art Sonje Center in collaboration with Gallery Factory.

Project Funders: The Frontiers in Retreat is funded with support from the European Commission. This communication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

The project is also supported by the Ministry of Education and Culture, Kone Foundation, Alfred Kordelin Foundation and Finnish National Agency for Education - Internationalisation Services.

Edge Effects Co-Funders: SSW: Creative Scotland, Finnish Institute London TelepART funding programme; HIAP: AVEK – The Promotion Center for Audiovisual Culture; Skaftfell: The Icelandic Visual Art Fund, The East Iceland Regional Development Fund, Seyðisfjörður Municipality and the Nature Preserve Fund of Pálmi Jónsson.

Exhibition Series Coordination and Communications: Jaana Eskola & Salla Lahtinen, HIAP

Graphic Design: NODE Berlin Oslo. Poster & brochure design for HIAP in Art Sonje: Joosung Kang.

[hiaphelsinki]

The Shared Brain of Harrie Liveart

Interview: Athanasía Aarniosuo

Harrie Liveart attempting to make fire by rubbing sticks together during the Residencies reflected symposium.

Harrie Liveart, the manifestation of the shared brain of Meri Linna and Saija Kassinen, stayed at HIAP’s Suomenlinna studio for a whole year. Their residency period ended in late 2018, and we met up to discuss the residency, the artists, and the life and times of Harrie Liveart. Meri and Saija met while applying to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki. During application week parties, they bumped into each other several times and immediately thought that their personalities clicked. The next week, they had already planned their first art piece. However, even though it was clearly love at first sight, it took them two years before they started working together. That first art piece is still waiting for the right moment to be realised.

Meri studied sculpture, while Saija studied time and space arts. They quickly started combining their skills in performance. During her degree year, Saija wrote her thesis about Harrie Liveart – who he is, where does he come from, where will he go. By that time, it was clear that Saija and Meri working together meant they had to work as one, as Harrie.

These days, after having worked together for years, Harrie’s personality has grown stronger. When working together, Saija and Meri often end up having ideas and doing things that neither would do individually – but Harrie does them. Harrie has his own agenda sometimes, it seems.

Harrie was born in 2010, that’s when his first work, “Intermission”, was exhibited at Kiasma. The time before that work Meri describes as being inside a womb, Harrie existed but was not born yet. The first moment of realisation came with “Intermission”, the idea that a symbiosis is much more than just working together. The works are born out of a collision of minds. When Saija and Meri come together as Harrie, their minds can achieve terrific things. Trust is of great importance. They both know and trust the other, and they have learned to be free within this third persona, Harrie.

Harrie’s ideas often stem from humorous conversations between Meri and Saija. Harrie tries the limits of the physical world, and makes art from and about silliness, playfulness and meaningful absurdity. An example of this, a work named “Daydreaming”, originated in an idea of a dance performance taking place entirely on water – the result was simpler, yet impressive. In the work, Meri and Saija are standing on water, as it would appear – as a matter of fact, they are standing on a platform that was sunk in Hietalahti body of water using a big crane, and they had a professional diver with them during the set up to make sure everything worked according to plan.

Harrie Liveart does not distinguish between silly and serious – everything can be looked at through funny glasses, and difficult issues are gentler to take in with a little humour. Humour is often a garnish, however, and the actual subject matter of the works lies a little deeper, under several layers. Meri says that the main purpose of Harrie’s works is to get his audience to think for themselves and offer them food for thought.

Harrie Liveart did just that in her performance at the Mänttä Art Festival in 2015. That was the first time that Harrie’s performance dealt with bigger issues than the relationship and communication between Meri and Saija. As part of the piece, called “Nomadic Nanostate”, Harrie Liveart employed their audience to work in the exhibition as volunteers, which in practice meant that they did not have to pay the entrance fee to the museum. The piece questioned the existing power structures within the art world, who pays for what, and who must suffer poverty for the art scene to be what it is. The Mänttä Art Festival was not happy about the piece, even though they had approved it originally. Harrie, however, felt that the criticism towards the unfair and capitalist nature of the art world was justified, the piece was a success, and he gained plenty of confidence to keep doing what he does.

Criticising unpaid labour within the artistic community is something both Meri and Saija feel strongly about. The amount of work artists put into their practice does in no way match the amount of money they are given as salary. Therefore, even though HIAP was such a great opportunity for Harrie Liveart - for the first time he had a home - almost half of the time spent at the residency was spent on extra jobs and grant applications, as their stay at HIAP consisted of a studio space but not a salary.

The rest of the time was spent on interesting projects. Harrie Liveart tried to make fire, for example. Either rubbing sticks together, or urinating into a pouch made of bubble wrap and then using it as a magnifying glass, Harrie is taking pleasure in a survival experience. Meri and Saija enjoyed the very long time they got to spend at HIAP. Ideas had a chance to develop, without being rushed by deadlines. The process is slower, and the ideas much more focused, in the end.

But where is Harrie Liveart now? I asked Saija and Meri to tell us a little more about the time after HIAP, their new projects, their grant from KONE Foundation and finally, which work do they think describes Harrie Liveart the best.

HARRIE LIVEART: The year in HIAP gave Harrie exactly what he wished for: a new direction for the future. Rich conversations led to a new exciting project idea and hard working with grant applications temporarily paid off and Harrie was granted a half a year start up salary for a bold initiative from KONE foundation.

Harrie begins his new cross-disciplinary long term project in a new home at an Artists’ house in Kruununhaka. The project “Collective Perversion - proposal for revaluation” dives into the problematics around clean drinking water through the toilet bowl. We are now at the stage of planning and research. We are investigating the complexities of our topic: waste handling of human fecal matter; exploring other organizations with related topics and ongoing solution oriented projects. During the half-year period, we are facilitating three different events/popup art exhibitions related to our topic in Sorbus gallery, Helsinki. We are also organizing a Nordic Seminar during the fall 2018 at the Nordic Art School in Kokkola with a topic of human waste and applied waste solutions. Harrie got also an invitation from Rejmyre Art Lab in Sweden for a month-long residency. We are collaborating in Rejmyre Art Lab’s long term project called Clean it up! where we are investigating composting options through the perspective of an earthworm.

Harrie is in front of new challenges also personally.  Beginning of the year 2018 Meri moved to Kokkola Finland where she started working part time as the Director of Study in the Nordic Art School, so she is commuting to Helsinki each month. Saija will be starting to work full time with Harrie’s project on March 2018. Harrie needs to find new dynamics between Meri and Saija, as most planning work will be done on distance.

So all the time we have together is going to be Harrie time!

Meri promised to take Saija on a vacation after the year. We wonder if Harrie will follow.

We think that this new project “Collective Perversion - proposal for revaluation” will definitely describe Harrie Liveart the best.

Interview and image: Athanasía Aarniosuo

Read more: http://harrieliveart.com

[hiaphelsinki]

Announcing the HIAP 2018 residencies

HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme is proud to announce the participants of 2018 HIAP Residency Programmes. Most of the residencies have now been confirmed, with only a few selections to be made based on the upcoming open calls and residency exchange partnerships. This year marks the 20th anniversary of HIAP with many celebrations coming up later this year!

The central focus of HIAP residency programmes is to provide opportunities for local and international artists and curators to conduct research, build networks and engage in an interdisciplinary dialogue with the HIAP community. Over the past few years, HIAP's aim has been to extend the duration of the residency periods and to arrange the residencies around specific residency seasons, which enables stronger bonds to be built within the residency community. The duration usually varies between one to three months, but can last up to 11 months.

HIAP Open Studios are a chance to meet up with the HIAP residents and get a glimpse of the work that they have been developing during their residency. HIAP hosts Open Studios at the end of each residency season in May, August and November. Throughout the year HIAP organises also other public events, such as talks and exhibitions, and residents realise their own self-organised events.

HIAP is also engaged in international residency exchanges and collaborations which offer residencies for Finnish artists (or artists based in Finland) in Frankfurt / Germany, Dublin / Ireland, Cambridge / United Kingdom, Seoul / South Korea and Tokyo / Japan.

HIAP Residents 2018

Natalie Abbott (Australia), Diego Bruno (Finland), Ilia Budraitskis (Russia), Baran Çağinli (Turkey), Ramesch Daha (Austria), Caroline Doolin (Ireland), FRAUD (Francisco Gallardo & Audrey Samson; United Kingdom), Rob La Frenais (United Kingdom), Gil & Moti (Netherlands), Rintaro Hara (Japan), Corinna Helenelund (Finland), Sejin Kim (South Korea), Sunyoung Kim (South Korea), Polina Kolozaridi (Russia), Sasha Kurmaz (Ukraine), Syowia Kyambi (Kenya / Germany), Marilou Lemmens & Richard Ibghy (Canada), Ivana Momčilović (Belgium), Arash Moori (Spain / United Kingdom), Ceci Moss (United States), Eriko Mukai (Japan), Brenna Murphy & Birch Cooper (United States), Egle Oddo (Finland), Raimo Saarinen (Finland), Antti Salminen (Finland), Cory Scozzari (Austria / Spain / United States), Tamara Searle (Australia), Matt Shilcock (Australia), Adwait Singh (India), Nestori Syrjälä (Finland), David Ter-Oganyan (Russia), Güllü Özkalp Ulusoy & Kemal Ulusoy (Turkey), Hitomi Usui (Japan), Evita Vasiljeva (Netherlands / Latvia), Louise Waite (Sweden / United Kingdom), Eleanor Wright & Sam Watson (Germany), Ceylan Öztrük (Switzerland / Turkey), Zodiak Side Step Festival’s residents Catalina Fernández Giraldo, Veli Lehtovaara, Marcela Levi & Lucía Russo, Ícaro dos Passos Gaya and Luc Shaltin + more HIAP residents to be confirmed

Please visit HIAP Artists Curators for residents' bios.

The residency artists for the year 2018 were selected by HIAP staff members and/or HIAP Associates via open calls or by invitation in context of our thematic programmes and collaborations. Read more about HIAP Residency Programmes.

Residency Exchanges

Residencies for Finnish artists (or artists based in Finland) in prominent international residency centers.

Production and Exhibition Platform basis e.V, Frankfurt, Germany: Juuso Noronkoski

In collaboration with Finnish Institute in London: Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin, Ireland: TBC Wysing Arts Center, Cambridge, United Kingdom: Nastja Säde Rönkkö

In context of Finnish Cultural Foundation residency programme: SeMA Nanji, Seoul, Korea: Elina Juopperi Tokyo Arts and Space Residency, Tokyo, Japan: Jonna Kina

The artists for the residency exchanges were selected via open calls organised by HIAP’s partner organisations. Please visit HIAP Residency Exchanges for more information.

During year 2018, HIAP is also one of the partners in the CrossSections project concieved by curator Basak Senova. The project involves 19 artists and residencies, exhibitions and other activities in Vienna, Stockholm and Helsinki.

Funders & Programme Partners

The main funders of HIAP Residency Programme are Taike Arts Promotion Centre Finland, Ministry of Education and Culture and City of Helsinki.

Residency programmes with specific thematic or geographic focus have been made possible with the support of Culture Programme of the European Commission, Kone Foundation, Finnish National Agency for Education, Ministry of Education and Culture, Alfred Kordelin Foundation, Nordic Culture Point and Australia Council for the Arts.

In addition, the residency programmes in 2018 are organised in collaboration with Aalto University, Academy of Fine Arts - University of the Arts Helsinki, Academy of Fine Arts Foundation, Alkovi Gallery, ARKO Arts Council Korea, AV-arkki - the Distribution Centre for Finnish Media Art, British Council, Curatorial Program for Research, Finnish Cultural Foundation, Finnish Comics Society, Finnish Institute in London, Forum Box, Frame Contemporary Art Finland, Goethe Institut, Helsinki Design Week, Perpetuum Mobile, Production and Exhibition Platform basis e.V, Saastamoinen Foundation, SeMA Nanji, Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Tokyo Arts and Space, Wysing Arts Center and Zodiak - Center for New Dance.

Pictured: HIAP Suomenlinna in February 2018. Photos: Sergio Urbina

For more information about the upcoming open calls, please visit HIAP Open Calls.

For residency and application inquiries contact Residency Programme Manager Saara Karhunen, saara(at)hiap.fi

For media inquiries contact Curator Marina Noronha, marina(at)hiap.fi

[hiaphelsinki]

Curators selected for the Helsinki International Curatorial Programme 2018

HIAP - Helsinki International Artist Programme and Frame Contemporary Art Finland are happy to announce their selection of four curators to participate in the Helsinki International Curatorial Programme (HICP) in 2018.

Curators Ceci Moss, Cory Scozzari, Adwait Singh and Asep Topan have been selected for one-month curatorial residencies taking place in May and November 2018 at HIAP Suomenlinna in Helsinki.

“We received a record number of incredibly strong applications this year from all corners of the world. This speaks volumes of the significance of HICP residencies for internationally active curators as a valued space-time for research” says Taru Elfving, Frame’s Head of Programme.

The Helsinki International Curatorial Programme provides curators with an opportunity to carry out research and work on international curatorial projects while building contacts with art practitioners and cultural organisations in Finland. Curatorial residencies are co-organised by Frame Contemporary Art Finland and the HIAP Helsinki International Artist Programme. HIAP and Frame will both offer practical assistance, networking support and a critical context for the residents’ curatorial research and projects.

Selected Curators

Ceci Moss is a curator, writer and educator based in Los Angeles. She is the founder of Gas, a mobile, autonomous, experimental and networked platform for contemporary art located in a truck gallery parked around Los Angeles and online. She has a MA and PhD in Comparative Literature from New York University, and a BA in History and Sociology from U.C. Berkeley. Her academic research addresses contemporary internet-based art practice and network culture.

Her writing has appeared in Rhizome, Art in America, ArtAsiaPacific, Artforum, The Wire, CURA, New Media & Society and various art catalogs. Previously, she was Assistant Curator of Visual Arts at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Senior Editor of the art and technology non-profit arts organization Rhizome, and Special Projects Coordinator at the New Museum. She has held teaching positions at the San Francisco Art Institute, Scripps College and New York University.

cecimoss.com

HICP residency in May 2018.

Cory Scozzari is a curator and artist. He is the founder and director of Cordova, a curatorial project initiated in 2016 in Vienna, currently located in Barcelona. From 2015–2017 he worked as assistant curator at Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary. He was a founding member and co-director of Jupiter Woods, London/Vienna from 2014–2016.

He received his BFA in photography from SCAD in 2010 and a MFA in curating at Goldsmiths in 2015. Recent exhibitions include: Holly White: ORANGE WORLDat Cordova in Barcelona, and Crater by Miguel Fernández de Castro and Lydia Ourahmane at Veda in Florence.

HICP residency in May 2018.

Adwait Singh is an independent curator and art theorist based out of New Delhi. His works frequently weave in and out of areas of inquiry such as subjectivity formation, gender and sexuality, posthumanism, contemporary technogenesis and ecofeminism.

Shortly after completing his education at Goldsmiths, he seized the opportunity to be part of the Students’ Biennale (Kochi, 2016) as a curator and has since conceptualised different art projects and workshops for/with students from various art colleges and universities in the country (College of Art Delhi, Shiv Nadar University, and Banaras Hindu University) for the biennale. Almost simultaneously, he joined the editorial team of TAKE on Art magazine, the leading publication on contemporary art in the Southeast Asian region.

Recent curations include the exhibition ‘G/rove’ (Feb, 2017) at Latitude 28 that examined the mythopoetic imperative of non-anthropocentric modalities of planet sharing, and an upcoming exhibition investigating the notion of a body-based historiography at the Shrine Empire Gallery (New Delhi, 2018).

adwaitsingh.com

HICP residency in November 2018.

Asep Topan is an independent curator and writer based in Jakarta, Indonesia. He holds an MFA in Curating from Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia, and attended de Appel Curatorial Programme, the Netherlands (2015–16). Asep was one of the curatorial team members of Jakarta Biennale 2015 Neither Forward Nor Back: Acting in The Present. As a curator, he focuses on exhibitions’ history and theory, art and activism, as well as labour conditions in contemporary art.

Asep has collectively and individually initiated numerous exhibitions, public programmes and long-term projects. Currently, he works as the vice-director for Jakarta Biennale 2017 and as a lecturer at the Jakarta Institute of Art.

aseptopan.com

HICP residency in November 2018.

Image: HIAP Suomenlinna, Sirja Moberg / Frame Contemporary Art Finland.

[hiaphelsinki]

NOTIONS OF BARE LIFE AND BARE LANGUAGE

Riikka Pelo in conversation with Athanasía Aarniosuo AA: Can you tell us a bit about the new book, Sacred Springtime? RP: The working title of my work-in-progress novel is actually now Kaikki elävä (Everything Alive). The previous title, The Sacred Springtime, however, refers to one of the bottom motives of the novel, a legend of sacrificing one generation of youth in order for a community to conciliate their gods and to survive in time of crises. This myth is also to be found in the roots of the juridical figure of homo sacer, the thematical navel of my novel. I deal with the motive and the theme in two different intertwining narratives in the manuscript. The first, ”Tyttö ja kuolema/Turvapaikka”, ”The Girl and Death/Safe Haven”, takes place in our present, overflowing moment and tells a story of two young people and an animal in 2018 Helsinki. The other one, which is still called ”Pyhä kevät”, “The Sacred Springtime” is a mythical and allegorical story and goes back to 8th century BC depicting an actual sacrifice and exile of a group of young people born in the same year. In their wandering the banned youth transforms into creatures, a pact of creatures, with animal soul. The subject of the novel is to explore the experience of characters, human and nonhuman, who have been pushed or drawn to live on verges of society or outside of it. Thematically this also leads to describe dynamics of a community, community based on sacrifice and violence, as our democratic society still in some way is, although it is hidden and unconscious. Through my writing, I search for ways out of these kind of destructive structures. By exploring the potentiality of language, I listen out for possibility of community and communication based not on death, but on everything which is alive.  

AA: You say the novel is “related to notions of bare life and bare language”. Does the environment of Suomenlinna help you with these themes? RP: For me the year in Suomenlinna gave a chance to explore and experience, what does these philosophically loaded concepts mean for me personally, artistically and in relation to my new novel and its characters and their being in language. My own being was marked by aspirations toward states of bareness and vulnerability, but for this I needed to be sheltered, invisible from the eyes of the world, the others' eyes. The island as a geographical place offered a shelter for gaining back my sensitivity and finding the being, the language and the voice of my characters. HIAP as a community and institute also understood and allowed this bare existence, half secret life of a writer, necessary for me at this stage of writing.

AA: You have also been writing a radio play about urban futures. How do these urban visions develop in the isolation of Suomenlinna? RP: I focused mostly on writing the novel and had to leave other planned writing projects, also the radio play, ”The Edge of Future”, on the side. However I did tackle on some notions and revelations related to this project, too. And the characters of the story echoed in me sometimes. Also the water, sound of the water, the power of the water, the founding motive of the manuscript (and the city of Helsinki) was present on the island at all times. And I saw the lighthouse of Harmaja, one of my main point of view coordinates, from my window through the year. The radio play, as it is a story of two young women at the verge of new, modern times, is also related to certain urban visions in 1910's Helsinki, the utopias and dreams around a new unrealised city plan, but also hopeful dreams of living good life at that time, just before the burst of war and independence of Finland. During this year in Suomenlinna, which was also the 100th year anniversary of Finland's independence, the historical understanding of the people in different classes of society and in the middle of our fairly short urban history in that time deepened in me more rather than articulation of their visions of future, yet. However, both the location and the history of Viaborg fortress/prison island did affect and will continue affecting on reforming the manuscript and enlivening the themes, and also help me understand my questions related to urban experience. Via personal experience on living on the edge of the city, yet on a lively island community, I can now see my subject also more clearly as I go back writing the new version of this work. Very often the ripest fruits of AIR-period follow the actual time spent there. AA: How much research goes into sculpting a manuscript?  RP: My work of writing fiction is tightly intertwined with research. Each book is always also a research project of its own into the themes, subjects, worlds, languages and narrative forms and composition of it. The novel for me is a narrative genre, which starts from the question: is it possible to tell about x and how. X for me is usually a specific experience, a state of being in a world. I pursue capturing this being as it is being in language. The preliminary background research phase may take even 3 or more years of writing a work of fiction for me. But different forms of research and exploration are present in creation of fictional worlds in other stages of the process too, whether the subject would be more historical, as in my previous book, Our Everyday Life, or thematical and philosophical, as in the current one. My books are born out of both imagining, trying to approach imagined states of being and researching the conditions and medium for them. A quote from the French novelist Marguarite Yourcenar describes very accurately my method of writing, too: ”with one foot in research, the other in magic arts, or more accurately, without metaphor, absorption in that sympathetic magic which operates when one transports one's self in thought into another's body and soul". AA: What has inspired you lately? RP: Sleeping, dreams, yoga nidra, power of constant storms on the island, presence of animals and children and pregnant women, deja vus, Simone Weil's philosophy and especially her texts on personality and sacred recommended to me by HIAP's technical assistant Paul, Göran Sonnevi's poetry, especially the Finnish translations of the Unfinished Language and the Ocean, Clarice Lispector, Louise Bourgeois's night drawings recommended to me by Tanja, the new neighbour on the island, Milja Viita's video's and installations, friendship, plant and tree and mushroom souls, essays of Maggie Nelson recommended by Belgian Hiapian An, DocPoint2018-festival catalogue and all films to be seen and missed and imagined soon, Kaukolampi, jazz, music for plants, islands, seeing a fairylike neighbour rehearsing his musical conducting by the window, bardo states, singing, family histories, overcoming crisis and clarity that can follow it, horizons... everything alive...

AA: What’s the next step in your writing career? RP: During this one year in Suomenlinna I have tried to find my strength and ability to work and write this new novel and I wish to maintain the right tuning I was able to find especially through the final autumn months. One year is a long time to spend as an artist-in-residence but a fairly short time for writing a novel, which in my case seems to last approximately seven years. My steps in writing are not only slow but they are very often heavy. I wish I could learn to take a bit lighter steps in the future. AA: Is there a book you would have liked to have written?   RP: My previous book, the book of Alya, the poet's daughter, was a book which was never written and I needed to write it. But to think according to this question seems like an impossibility to me now. Maybe there would be music, paintings, installations, films, which I would have liked to have created, but with literature I am always interested in potentialities more than actualities.

IMAGES COURTESY OF SALLA LAHTINEN / HIAP

PORTRAIT PHOTO COURTESY OF SERGIO URBINA / HIAP

More: 

http://www.hiap.fi/artist/riikka-pelo

[hiaphelsinki]

THE TRUTH ABOUT LANGUAGE: ILAN MANOUACH’S SHAPEREADER

By Athanasía Aarniosuo

Photo: Imagen MAS I arrived at Photographic Gallery Hippolyte on a rainy and grey Saturday afternoon. I didn’t know much about what was coming, apart from the fact that I was to participate in a sensory workshop about language and stories. I knew that artist Ilan Manouach has a background in comics, and I knew that he had received a grant from Kone Foundation to develop his own sensory and linguistic experience through art and storytelling. As soon as I arrived at the gallery, the participants to the workshop were divided into two groups and led into a dark room. The fact that I was slightly late for the workshop, added to my feeling of unease, together with the fact that I genuinely do not believe that I function well without my eyesight to rely on. Ilan then told us the premise of the exercise: we were to create a new language within our group, and then use the language to tell a story. The workshop is based on Shapereader, a language-building system Ilan has been working on since 2013. The Shapereader-workshop is an opportunity for visually impaired participants to work together with the visually able, in order to create a unique, disappearing, haptic language. The language took the shape, literally, of hundreds of little flat blocks with engraved shapes on them. These shapely blocks, or communication blocks, form the basis of the language; the words, the meanings, the letters, whatever the group would want them to be. I can see so much potential in these little blocks. Ilan told us that he has been using over 5000 different communication blocks, and almost as many shapes. In my group of three people, we struggled to live up to the potential of the communication blocks. Our sensory skills were not great. Our communications skills, although better, were not terrific either. How do you build a language, when you cannot decide on what you want to say? This was a major challenge, and a somewhat surprising one, also. Interestingly enough, the group ended up discussing language, rather than stories. Even though the story should have come first. I believe that was our main fault: we focused too much on the symbols, too much on the means to communicate, rather than what we wanted to communicate. I had originally thought that the main challenge would be assigning meanings to the communication blocks. Instead, that was the easy part. What is language made up of? Letters, words, stories. Also, emotion: you tell a story, and it is delivered differently depending on the genre. These were the questions we were asked to solve; how do you assign meaning to a block in order to show that the story you are telling is making you anxious? How do you create a language, when you don’t know what you are trying to express? What comes first, the language or the story? The signifier or the signified? In the end, we did come up with a story, as well as a language to tell it. In our dystopic future sci-fi fantasy, the world was coming to an end and humans tried to flee it on a spaceship (the stories I come up with seem to follow this pattern!). What I feel I was given, was a chance to reflect on why we need language. All my life I feel I have been preoccupied with arranging my storytelling blocks (or parts of the story) in different ways to create different meanings and different stories. In a way, the story itself has always come second to the linguistic material I have been using. Ilan gave me (and many others, I presume) the means to reflect more on the necessity of language in order to express some already existing dialogue. READ MORE:

http://shapereader.org

http://ilanmanouach.com

http://hippolyte.fi/nayttely/ilan-manouach-shapereader-2/?lang=en