Helsinki International Artist Programme

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HIAPHelsinki International Artist Programme

2015 The second annual publication of HIAP - Helsinki International Artist Programme

Cover: Anne Ferran, Conquest, 2015-2016 HIAP 2015 Residencies Frontiers in Retreat Events & Exhibitions

6 Introduction: 20 Jaroslav Andel 96 Introduction: 136 Interpreting the The Ingredients 22 Paola Anziché Multidisciplinary Frame: Reflecting on of a Great Artist 24 Boshko Boskovic Approaches Interpreting the Frame Residency? 30 Jasper Bruijns to Ecology in Exhibition 32 Juhyun Choi Contemporary Art 138 Axel Straschnoy: 10 HIAP Gallery Augusta, 34 Teresa Dillon 98 Adaptations Utö: Neomylodon Listai HIAP Project Space & 36 Branislav Dimitrijević Narrative and Sensory Ameghino Office 40 Anne Ferran Enquiries into Island 11 Suomenlinna Studios 42 Renée Green 142 HELSINKI GROUP Ecology & Guest Rooms 44 Hanna Husberg 146 Jesse Auersalo: Hold 100 Deep Time Séance: 12 Cable Factory Studios 46 Angela Jerardi Me in Your Arms (and Embodied Enquiries 48 Alevtina Kakhidze Never Let Me Go) 14 Residency 52 Heidi Kilpeläinen into Geohistory and Programmes 2015 56 Barbara Knezevic Planetary Futures 148 Human Interference Task Force (HITF): 58 Karel Koplimets 110 Excavations: Insulation (Mounting 164 Residencies 60 Jenny Marketou Explorations into Layers) 166 Residency Exchanges 62 Meadow, Meadow, Interdependencies 166 Curator Residencies Meadow 150 Tonight: We are 116 Zooetics 167 Workshops, Retreats 64 Katrín Ólína together, trapped & Performance 66 Georgios Papadopoulos 118 Sylvia Grace Borda on an island and 168 HIAP Programme 70 Alexis Rodolphe 120 Carl Giffney becoming fragile Partners & 72 Jenna Sutela & Martti 124 Tuomas A. Laitinen 154 Learning Village 2015 Collaborators Kalliala 128 Mirko Nikolić 169 HIAP Board & 74 Danae Valenza 132 Tracey Warr 156 Tokamak: The Idleness Members 2015 78 Triin Valvas Academy: Where Art 169 HIAP Staff 82 Jana Vasiljević Sleeps…with One Eye 170 Funders 84 Disa Wallander Open 88 Ruth Waller 90 Elizabeth Willing 158 The Safe Haven Helsinki? Symposium INTRODUCTION: THE INGREDIENTS OF A GREAT ARTIST RESIDENCY?

As an introduction to the HIAP 2015 publica- of the important keywords at HIAP is hospi- the superficial level. Fortunately there is a great alize upon (or even to pin down and describe). tion, here are a few thoughts about what are tality - generosity and sensitivity towards other diversity in the interests of the resident artists, One great opportunity to get an overview of some of the essential features of a great artist fellow beings. and for many of them key sites are located far how artist residency practice has evolved over residency, and how HIAP strives to provide One big change in the composition of the beyond the perimeter of our tiny island. Many the past years is the upcoming Residencies re- these. residency community in 2015 was an increased of the resident artists head up north to Lapland, flected symposium on 16-18 November 2016, emphasis on curator residencies. Amongst the or develop projects in the nearby cities of Tal- organised by HIAP in collaboration with Uni- Freedom, freedom and freedom 10–15 residency artists, we now usually have linn, Stockholm or St Petersburg. versity of the Arts Helsinki / Academy of Fine one or two curators in residence. The residen- Arts and Frame Contemporary Art Finland. During a residency at HIAP, artists have the cy community also grew in size – we had more Thematic discourse freedom to decide how they want to spend their group residencies and collaborations with the And finally, a few words about this publication: time. This basic traditional quality of artist res- local art scene than ever before. Alongside the open-ended residency activi- idencies has to be emphasised and defended at ty, which is built around emerging new topics, This is the second edition of the annual HIAP times, when creative freedom is too often limit- An inspiring location HIAP also engages in a long term thematic re- publication. With 174 pages it’s more extensive ed by the pre-defined goals set by funders and search and exploration. than the first one, but still does not cover all our other institutions. HIAP has the fortune of being located in two The current important themes include glob- activities. This publication introduces 27 res- Our experience has been that emphasising very special locations – the Cable Factory cul- al ecological changes and their local impacts idencies (approximately a quarter of the total the artists’ freedom is one of the best ways to tural complex and Suomenlinna island, a Une- on European natural environments (Frontiers 92 residencies) and 9 events (a limited selection make the residencies both very focused and sco World Heritage site. in Retreat, 2013-2018), freedom of artistic ex- of the total 76 events realised/co-realised by productive. While Cable Factory is closely attached to pression in times of increasing censorship and HIAP). Nevertheless, we hope that it can give a the contemporary cultural life of Helsinki, repression of artists (Nordic Fresh Air, 2014- good general overview of all the diverse activi- An inspiring residency community Suomenlinna gives an opportunity to connect to 2016) and learning & education (HIAP Osmo- ties that took place at HIAP during 2015. the tumultuous history of the region. The island sis, 2015-2016). I would like to send warm thanks to all the One thing that is clearly beyond the control of is also a great site to experience the strength of We have now reached the midpoint of our contributors of this publication, and especially HIAP staff is the inner dynamics of the HIAP the four seasons, amplified by the winds coming biggest current undertaking - the Frontiers in Jasmin Islamovic & Salla Lahtinen for the ex- residency community. We can do our best to from the open Baltic Sea. And finally – it is an Retreat project - and have included a special cellent design. create a good platform for exchange and dia- island, an isolated miniature society, which can section dedicated to this project in this publi- Also big thanks to our multi-talented and logue, but at the end of the day, the spirit, ener- encourage utopian (or dystopian) thinking and cation. diligent staff, our wonderfully supportive board gy and aspirations of the residency community actions. and all the collaborators, supporters and funders are constantly in a state of flux. Being situated in such inspiration-abundant The above list is by no means a definitive list for an intense and fruitful year 2015! Artists residencies are not only about pro- locations, it is essential for HIAP to maintain a of what all artist residencies can or should be. fessional exchange – it is also important to en- culture of critical dialogue so that the residency Many artist residencies have their own idiosyn- Juha Huuskonen counter your peers as individual persons. One artist can explore the site-specific issues beyond cratic features, which can be difficult to gener- Director, HIAP

6 HIAP 7 HIAP HIAP 2015 HIAP Gallery Augusta, HIAP Suomenlinna HIAP Project Space & Studios & Guest Rooms Office

HIAP, located on Susisaari island in Suomenlin- adaptable art space. Both the gallery and proj- HIAP Suomenlinna Studios is a two-story, red na, provides two dynamic event spaces: HIAP ect space function as diverse and flexible venues brick barracks, originally built in the 18th cen- Gallery Augusta and HIAP Project Space. promoting the growth and understanding of tury. The complex is comprised of nine resi- HIAP Gallery Augusta, a non-proft exhibition art through open and varied exchanges. Each dential units, five artists’ studios and four guest space, hosts numerous exhibitions, performanc- space, adjacent to HIAP’s offce and situated rooms. Studios occupy 80-120 sq metres and es and other events throughout the year. HIAP near the island’s residency studios, is available are divided between a downstairs work space Project Space operates as a versatile event space for use to current residents as well as the local and a separate loft-style living space. housing workshops, seminars, and lectures. community. Each guest room occupies approximately 30 Originally built as a barrack in the 19th cen- sq metres and can house up to two persons at tury, both areas have been beautifully renovat- a time. The guest rooms are mainly offered to ed allowing HIAP Gallery Augusta 175 sq me- artists, curators, writers, researchers and critics ‘HIAP Open Studios’ with Elizabet Willing, tres and HIAP Project Space 130 sq metres of Photo: Tuomas Laasanen from visual arts field. Summer 2015. Photo: Salla Lahtinen

10 HIAP 11 HIAP HIAP Cable Factory Studios

The Cable Factory, situated on the western wa- HIAP Cable Factory Studios are located on terfront of the city, was used to manufacture the fourth foor of the Cable Factory cultural cable and telephone equipment by Nokia from centre. The three studios, each 60 sq metres, 1940 until the mid-1980’s. With over five hect- are fully equipped for independent living and ares of floor space, Cable Factory is the largest working. cultural structure in Helsinki. Dozens of studios for artists, architects, designers and musicians, as well as museums, art schools, non-proft organisations, commercial enterprises, dance and publishing companies and other cultural institutions inhabit the complex. The Cable Factory is the daily workplace for over seven hundred JENNA SUTELA & MARTTI KALLIALA, ‘Disruption professionals in every feld of art and creative Begins at Home: The Loft’, HIAP Gable Factory Studios, 2015. business. Photos: Paavo Lehtonen

12 HIAP 13 HIAP Residency Programmes 2015

HIAP Residency Programme Helsinki International Curatorial CUNE Comics-in-Residence Programme Dance – Theatre – Performance HIAP Residency Programme is HIAP’s main Programme CUNE Programme gives comic artists and oth- HIAP collaborates with several noted organisa- programme, which has welcomed artists to Hel- The programme offers residencies in Helsin- er professionals a chance to explore the culture, tions and professionals to offer accommodation sinki since year 1998. The programme focuses ki for international curators of contemporary people, and local comics scene of their neigh- and premises for performing arts residencies on contemporary art but is open for art profes- art. The programme is co-organised by HIAP boring European countries. The programme is and projects. Collaborators during year 2015 sionals from other disciplines as well. Residency and Frame Contemporary Art Finland. The organised by the Finnish Comics Society and included Kiasma Theatre and Zodiak - Center includes accommodation and a studio space at programme provides the curators with an op- The Estonian Comics Society. Annual applica- for New Dance. In 2015, Tomasz Szrama and HIAP Studios, free of charge, for the duration portunity to carry out research and to develop tion periods. Liina Kuittinen organised several editions of of one to three months. HIAP provides the art- international curatorial projects while building The programme is supported by Nordic-Bal- Tonight, an all-night event focused on perfor- ists with residency services and curatorial sup- contacts with art practitioners and cultural or- tic Mobility Programme and Eesti Kultuurkap- mance art. port. Annual application periods. ganisations in Finland. Annual application pe- ital. riods. Residency Exchange Programmes Nordic & Baltic Residency Programme Residency Fellow Programme at the HIAP has international residency exchange Nordic & Baltic Residency Programme focus- ARKO Curator Residency Programme Academy of Fine Arts programmes that enable Finnish artists and es on artists from Nordic & Baltic region. The A residency programme which offers Korean The Academy of Fine Arts’ Resident Fellow curators to have residencies abroad, and offer residency includes accommodation and a stu- curators an opportunity to carry out research Programme brings together scholars, curators residencies in Finland for artists and curators dio space at HIAP Studios, travel costs, work- and build contacts with art practitioners and and artists working in the field of contempo- worldwide. The aim of the exchanges are to ing grant and a production budget. The pro- cultural organisations in Finland. The pro- rary art: to collaborate, think and create. The offer dialogue, collaboration and networking gramme is supported by the Nordic Culture gramme is funded by ARKO Arts Council Ko- programme includes two to four residency peri- opportunities, and to foster mutually beneficial Point. rea. ods arranged annually. The resident fellows are cultural interaction between the participating hosted by HIAP at HIAP Suomenlinna studios. countries and regions. In 2015, HIAP realised HIAP Residency Programme for Finnish Design Residencies Resident Fellow Programme is supported by residency exchanges with Temple Bar Gallery Artists HIAP has collaborated with the British Council Saastamoinen Foundation. + Studios (Dublin, Ireland) and Center of Con- The programme offers residencies in HIAP and Helsinki Design Week starting from 2012, temporary Art (Tbilisi, Georgia). Suomenlinna for visual artists living in Finland. offering UK based practitioners a one month Academy of Fine Arts Studio Space HIAP Residency Programme for Finnish Artists residency in Helsinki coinciding with Helsinki Residency Connecting Points is supported by Arts Promotion Centre Finland. Design Week. The British Council residency is A one-year long studio space residency for the Connecting Points brings the newest genera- for practitioners, who work at the intersections recent graduates of Academy of Fine Arts, Uni- tion of young Russian artists to Helsinki. Po- Australian Artists Programme of art, design and architecture, and who have versity of the Arts Helsinki. The programme is etics and politics are essential elements to the Australia Council for the Arts collaborates with an interest in critical investigations and inter- funded by the The Academy of Fine Arts Foun- practices of those invited to the residency and HIAP on a residency programme for Australian ventions into what constitutes design innova- dation. are interwoven in such a way as to leave space artists. The residency includes accommodation tion. Annual application periods. for the rise of imaginative and new interpreta- and a studio space at HIAP Suomenlinna stu- In 2015, HIAP also invited one designer Translator-in-Residence Programme tions. The original concept (then titled Chang- dios for the duration of three months, as well from Germany for a one month residency, in HIAP and FILI – Finnish Literature Exchange ing Places) for the programme was developed as a working grant. HIAP provides the artists collaboration with Helsinki Design Week. offer a residency programme for translators of by curator Marita Muukkonen. In 2014 curator with residency services and curatorial meetings. Finnish literature at Suomenlinna. FILI is an Jenni Nurmenniemi took over the programme Annual application periods. expert and export organisation, which supports responsibilities and it was retitled Connecting the translation, printing and publication of lit- Points. erature and promotes the awareness of Finnish Connecting Points is supported by Ministry literature abroad. Annual application periods. of Education and Culture.

14 HIAP 15 HIAP Osmosis (2015-2016) dency centers located in “remote” areas across HIAP Osmosis explores new forms of learn- Europe in order to provide a unique, transna- ing and participation. In the framework of tional platform for investigating local and glob- Osmosis, HIAP residencies intertwine with the al ecological concerns. Frontiers in Retreat is curriculum of several schools and educational realised by seven artist residency organisations institutions, offering learning and networking in Finland, Iceland, Scotland, Latvia, Serbia, opportunities for students and researchers. Os- and Spain in collaboration with a Lithuanian mosis approaches education and learning from art organisation that will develop the education- a multidisciplinary perspective, through visual al programme of the project. arts, design and curating. The project has been funded with support The programme is supported by the Finnish from the European Commission, the Ministry Cultural Foundation. of Education and Culture, the Kone Founda- tion and the Alfred Kordelin Foundation. Frontiers in Retreat (2013–2018) Frontiers in Retreat is a research residency plat- Nordic Fresh Air (2014–2016) form that fosters multidisciplinary dialogue on Nordic Fresh Air is a Nordic-Baltic network ecological issues within a new European networking for freedom of artistic expression in work involving artist residencies, art and edu- times of increasing censorship and repression cation organisations, artists, experts in various of artists. It organises temporary residencies for disciplines, as well as diverse audiences. The artists and art professionals, who are forced to aim of the project is to broaden the understand- leave their home for political reasons. The pro- ing of global ecological changes and their local gramme in Finland is co-ordinated by HIAP, impacts on European natural environments by Perpetuum Mobilε and Cooperative Buongior- means of contemporary artistic practices and no. The partners in Nordic and Baltic countries through a multidisciplinary approach. are MoKS (Estonia), Art Lab Gnesta (Sweden), 23 artists have been invited from across Eu- Malmö City (Sweden), The Swedish Artists Or- rope for research residencies in the centres run ganisation KRO, SafeMUSE (Norway), KiN by the partners of the project. Their sites, rec- Contemporary Art Centres in Norway and ognised as frontiers, are approached as resonant Freemuse (Denmark). of the entwined geopolitical and socio-econom- The network is funded by Nordic Culture ic processes. During the project, the artists will Point and Ministry of Education and Culture, move within the residency network, research Finland. the particular ecological contexts of the sites, initiate knowledge exchange between diverse The full list of HIAP Programme Partners and Collab- disciplines in incubator workshops, and devel- orators in 2015 can be found on page 170. op new artworks. The activities undertaken by HIAP are curated by Jenni Nurmenniemi. The project is coordinated by HIAP with the support of the Culture Programme of the Eu- ropean Union. The project connects artist resi- THE BODYBUILDING PROJECT, A Non-Conclusion, Suomenlinna Island, Aug 19, 2015. Photo: Salla Lahtinen

16 HIAP 17 HIAP RESIDENCIES Jaroslav Andel: Interview

Curator Jaroslav Andel (based be- lems. This is because education You recently had a short tween Prague and NYC) did a one- is the field where the society curator residency at HIAP. week curator residency at HIAP in reproduces itself on individual Were there some key find- the context of HIAP Osmosis Pro- and collective levels. It thus im- ings on this visit to Finland gramme. Andel is currently working pacts everything else, and thus that you could mention? on a traveling exhibition dealing with deserves much more attention the theme Radical Pedagogy. This and understanding. Therefore Finland is of course known as exhibition series also aims to provide I made a decision that I would the country with possibly the a platform for a network of people work on this topic on a lon- best education system - this is at and organisations to have a dialogue ger-term basis, using various in- least the way this education sys- on this topic over the next few years. stitutional forms and platforms. tem has often been described in We face challenges that are international media. The im- Can you say a few words genuinely new to us. We cannot pression that I got during my about how you understand deal with these new challenges visit, based on the meetings I Radical Pedagogy and why by relying just on traditional had, is that people in Finland you chose this theme for means, i.e. without develop- really care about education. the exhibition? ing new tools and institutional And this is perhaps the pri- forms. One of the goals of the mary reason why the system is I approach the topic of Radical project is to create a network of successful. On the other hand Pedagogy in a broader sense than people and organisations from I could see that there are also it’s usually understood - it’s usu- different fields who would col- some serious problems, and ally associated with the writings laborate in a more fundamental that these are of structural na- of Brazilian philosopher Paulo way than just producing exhibi- ture. And this seems to confirm Freire. My approach is that we tions. We live in a world, which the premise I had, which is that need to question the funda- is more specialized, and at the there is a need to deal with the Jaroslav Andel at ‘HIAP Morning Coffee - Radical Pedagogy?’, HIAP Gallery Augusta, mental premises of the modern same time more interconnected structural problems, which are Sep 30, 2015. Photo: Salla Lahtinen system of education, as we cur- than ever before. To deal with similar around the world. rently know it. The reason for this complexity and address the this is that I have recently or- root causes of the current chal- Jaroslav Andel’s interview was con- ganised a series of exhibitions lenges, we have to reach beyond ducted by Juha Huuskonen, Director addressing the major current the boundaries of individual of HIAP. The first exhibition relat- challenges to democracy. And expert cultures and share and ed to Jaroslav’s project on education step-by-step, I realised that ed- collaborate much more than we opened in Reykjavik Art Museum on ucation is perhaps the main key are used to. January, 2016. to tackling the current prob-

20 Jaroslav Andel HIAP 21 Osmosis HIAP Paola Anziché: Into Lapin Raanu

During my residency at HIAP, I was interest- to be right; I found out that the origins of the ed in exploring Finnish weaving history and its raanu are nomadic and come from the Sámi origins, since I knew how relevant weaving was people, Finland’s indigenous people, who have in the cultural history of Finland. I was quite been living nomadically long before the Finnish surprised as, little by little, I found out that most State was established. Raanu is an old wool- of the female artists who were only considered en textile from the 16th and 17th century that as ‘textile artists’ are mostly forgotten nowa- was used as a blanket, a tablecloth or a curtain, days, and whenever I was inquiring information mostly on the western coast of Finland. Its use about Finnish weaving techniques, people in as a blanket proved to be very important be- Helsinki didn’t seem to know that much about cause of the cold climate and leaky houses. Lap- it. The reaction always seemed to be the same: in raanu in its original form is a simple textile “oh…that is a handcraft, it has nothing do with with the natural color of wool and no patterns. art.” The Sámi people also used to wrap themselves In recent years, there has been a general re- in raanus to keep warm. consideration of the interesting and lively ex- Specifically, I focused my interest on Elsa changes about creativity between the innova- Montell-Saanio who developed the modern tive works developed by several generations of Lapin raanu that became popular in the 70s. ‘textile artists’ (from the time of the Deutscher Currently, a major public collection of her work Werkbund and the Bauhaus school) until more is absent from museums while private collectors recent artists’ success. Many fundamental ques- collect most of it. No retrospective show of her tions regarding craftsmanship versus mass pro- work has been organized and very little writing duction, or usefulness versus formal beauty in about her work Arktinen horisontti has been pub- a commonplace objects, have been touched lished, with the exception of a small publication upon. Subsequently, a different understanding (containing poetic texts). and appreciation have been developed towards As I consider her textile work to be an in- such innovative artists who have consistently credible synthesis of several sources and influ- experimented with both traditional and indus- ences, coming both from the natural world as trialized weaving techniques, redefining what well as from the cultural milieu of that time, I textile art could be. decided to compose all the selected materials I Also, the weaved carpets Raanu that I found managed to find in a table composition – titled the most interesting are a fascinating example Into Lapin raanu. To me this is a starting point for of an abstract and non-figurative art as they a future investigation and a research trip that reminded me of the nomadic carpets from the I would like to take in the Lapland region of natives of North America. My intuition proved Finland.

22 Paola Anziché HIAP Residency Programme HIAP 23 Images courtesy of theHIAP artist Boshko Boskovic & Jenni Nurmenniemi: Learning by Retreating – Two Curators on an Exchange

Two international artist residency centers curatorial residencies. Each fellow took their formed the settings for one of the first interac- personal curatorial approach to another, unfa- tions organized between New York and Helsin- miliar context while absorbing fresh ideas and ki via the Mobius program. ways of working from their new surroundings and residency communities. In recent years, not only have the artist-in-res- Besides getting to know their host organiza- Curators Boshko Boskovic and Jenni Nurmenniemi at ‘Interpreting the Frame’ opening. Photo: Tuomas Laasanen idence programs increased in number but also tions closely, both curators realized their own their role has become more and more signifi- productions in New York and Helsinki. In Jan- cant in the production, distribution, and com- uary 2015 at HIAP Gallery Augusta, Boskovic The following dialogue be- juggle the two while discover- from how you organize your munication of contemporary art and artistic re- curated an exhibition utilizing the collections tween Boskovic and Nurmen- ing New York at the same time? program. All this resulted in a search in the globalized art world. Residencies and archive material of the Finnish Museum niemi aims to open up how quite intense but invigorating also play an important part in many curators’ of Photography, with several new works com- they conducted their respective J: I would say that quite a bit two months. work. Through their Mobius fellowships, Bosh- missioned from artists living and working ei- residencies at HIAP in Helsin- of juggling was indeed needed ko Boskovic, the Program Director of Brooklyn ther in Helsinki or in New York. For her part, ki and Residency Unlimited in in order to advance my main B: While in residency, you had based Residency Unlimited, and Jenni Nur- Nurmenniemi curated a one night site-specif- New York. project at home, Frontiers in the opportunity to make studio menniemi, the Curator of HIAP – Helsinki ic performative installation at the premises of Retreat, which aims to create visits with all the internation- International Artist Programme, were able to Residency Unlimited in April 2015. The two Boshko: Jenni, lets start with new thinking around ecolo- al artists in residency at Resi- undertake work exchange periods at each oth- projects were well-received and got direct con- saying that your residency in gy through contemporary art, dency Unlimited, which at the er’s organization tailored with the support of tinuation after the residency periods. A version New York was two-folded: while at the same time produc- time totaled 14. What was the the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York. This of the exhibition Interpreting the Frame, curated by one part was to curate and to ing a kind of event that I had most valuable thing that you short dialogue between the two curators aims Boskovic, migrated to the Finnish Museum of produce your event, Deep Time never curated before in a com- got from these dialogues and to articulate their experiences of this exchange. Photography in Helsinki while the second ep- Séance and the other to further pletely unfamiliar environment. are there any projects on the Gaining insight into completely new cultural isode of Nurmenniemi’s Deep Time Séance event your research on artists that fos- Also, part of my residency was horizon that materialized from context by retreating from one’s everyday en- [was] re-staged at Kiasma Theatre in Helsinki ter multidisciplinary dialogue dedicated to meeting the resi- these encounters? vironment, professional routines and responsi- in October 2015. on ecological questions. Were dent artists and curators at Res- bilities was the main mutually set goal for the there enough hours in a day to idency Unlimited and to learn J: It was unbelievably valuable

24 Boshko Boskovic HIAP 25 Mobius Residency Programme HIAP ‘Interpreting the Frame’, HIAP Gallery Augusta, Jan 30 – Feb 2, 2015. Photo: Juuso Noronkoski. ‘Deep Time Séance’, Residency Unlimited, New York, Aug 8, 2015. Photo: Residency Unlimited to get to meet all the artists at when one retrieves from the However, I had tried to ad- tween my various projects and three were not present. How hard-to-categorize type of situ- RU. Many of them were workday-to-day operations. How vance them as much as possi- to gain the much-needed dis- did this impact your choices ation for RU’s amazing space, ing on themes relevant to my did you structure your time in ble prior to my departure, so tance from my regular ways of and did the final outcome dif- with artists that I have a close ongoing work, which aims to- New York and were you able that I could be able to properly working at home. Every now fer from how you planned it or dialogue with and whose ways ward rethinking ‘ecology’ and to “disconnect” from your du- disconnect and attune myself and then I notice with HIAP imagined it? of working I am particularly the meetings resulted in not ties at HIAP? I am asking this into my new environment for residents that they seem con- excited about. only exciting discussions but question since while I was in two months. It is not such a tinuously occupied with their J: The choice of these three also in concrete plans for future Helsinki during my residency, I long time to be away, after all. other projects taking place else- artists that I had recently been Two of these artists’ contri- collaborations. At the moment, had to carve a bit of time for However, as you mentioned, in where to the extent that in the working with in Finland was butions were planned in a there are two artist residencies, my professional duties with my today’s constantly connected end they don’t learn that much based on my discomfort with way that did not require their two curatorial residencies and organization, which is a testa- cultural landscape, it is nearly about their current place of the idea of landing in New physical presence. To be more one exhibition in the planning ment to the connectivity driven impossible to disconnect your- residence. York and having to curate a concrete, with Pallasvuo, the for 2016 – all these are direct world that we are currently all self completely. Thus, I stayed public event without any ex- whole idea was to transmit en- outcomes from the meetings ar- experiencing. in touch with many of the peo- B: You worked with three Finn- perience of the local cultural ergies through his miniature ranged by RU. ple I am working with, the axis ish artists for your Deep Time ecology or dialogue with local sculptures, Energy Objects. In J: During the first weeks in spanning from West Africa to Séance project: Tuomas A. Lait- artists just within 7 weeks time. Laitinen’s case, the fact that his B: A residency is a temporal af- New York, I was working quite Kainuu, Finland. I think I was inen, Matti Ahopelto and Jaak- I wanted to use the opportunity friend and trusted collaborator, fair and supposed to be a time closely on my projects at HIAP. able to find a nice balance be- ko Pallasvuo. Two out of the to create a completely unique, musician Matti Ahopelto was

26 Boshko Boskovic HIAP 27 Mobius Residency Programme HIAP present for the whole week of impression of seeing artworks that I was conceiving. I needed research, dialogue and produc- tute in New York, which runs and how we schedule residents the event, made the whole per- in these circumstances? a framework where the artists tion. The implications for my the Mobius program, had com- throughout the year I feel that formative installation possible. reacted to something in order Mobius experience were pure- plete trust in me, which made the two programs are some- Their artwork was based on J: From the fairs that you men- to produce new work. When I ly positive since I could stretch things very easy on my side. We what similar. the seamless combination of tioned, Independent seemed visited Helsinki for the first time my residency experience, so had regular meetings every few Laitinen’s animated imagery the most fresh and intriguing to I fell in love with the Finnish to speak, into a period of 7 months where I briefed them J: What kinds of long-term con- and Ahopelto’s ambient drone me, there I actually had the rare Museum of Photography and months rather than condens- on my progress so everyone sequences do you think there music. In order to bring anoth- sensation of being surprised. I their rich collection. Through ing it into a 1 or 2 month resi- knew where I was at any given are of your participation in this er type of presence to the situ- loved that. However, instead of conversations with Ilari Laa- dency. My first trip was in June point in time. curatorial residency exchange? ation, I invited New York based fairs and biennials, I generally manen from the Finnish Cul- 2014 when I did research at the artist-physicist Tatiana Istomi- prefer a bit less buzzing set up tural Institute in New York it Finnish Museum of Photogra- J: How did you feel about en- B: I think I have created long na (who I first met through your when looking at art. became apparent that we could phy and had meetings with all tering a new cultural scene (of lasting relationships with many Mobius exhibition project!) to approach the museum and pro- the Finnish artists and HIAP Helsinki) that you had little pre- Finnish artists and colleagues share stories related to the sub- To me the most fun part was pose to work with their collec- staff. Then I had a period of vious knowledge about before- from institutions in Helsinki. I jective yet shared ecological probably to get to see a few tion for the exhibition that I 6 months in New York where I hand? feel that my knowledge of the anxieties that sort of sparked New York collectors’ homes had in mind. Sofia Lahti, the had fruitful conversations with Finnish contemporary art scene the whole séance to begin with. and their passion for living curator of the collection of the the artists, obviously not for the B: Well, I have to say that I has been broadened and I have with art. All in all, the art fair Finnish Museum of Photogra- entire 6 months, but periods of had visited Helsinki once be- created many more friendships B: What are the similarities and week gave a nice kick-start to phy was very receptive to the time, when we were discussing fore, just for a few days, so I in Finland altogether. differences that you observed my New York spring. The rest idea that the five Finnish artists their research of the photo col- had some knowledge, but defi- regarding how our respective of the time I could then enjoy (Jonna Kina, Liinu Grönlund, lection, what they would like nitely not a vast one. This was J: Now after some time, what residency programs, HIAP and more quiet seminars, panels, Tanja Koljonen, Juuso Noron- to do, how they would present a great opportunity to deepen would you consider as the most Residency Unlimited function and talks as well as gallery tours koski and Mikko Rikala) could the works, discussing the pub- this knowledge and get to un- important outcome of your and operate? and museum visits. conduct research on their col- lication, writing an essay about derstand the scene better. I was Mobius fellowship? lection. the exhibition, etc. I sort of very happy that I was able to J: Comparing the two programs B: What are the things that you continued the residency period visit places outside of Helsinki B: Probably the most important that operate with equal volumes did not manage to do in New The process was two-fold – I at home, which was a fantastic such as the annual Art Festi- outcome for me was the long- but in radically different cities, I York and wish you had? had to study the collection thing and the luxury of having val and the new Serlachius Art term process of creating one would say that RU is based on myself first and then assign all this time and support from Museum in Mänttä. exhibition and the beautiful more structured networking, J: Well, I really wish I had expe- artists to particular collections the Mobius program to dedi- publication designed by the tal- whereas things at HIAP tend rienced the hot New York Sum- from which they did their own cate to one project. J: How do the ways of orga- ented Karolina Konieczna. to develop more organically. mer! I left when the cherry trees homework and used it as an in- nizing residency programs at HIAP has only grown this big were in bloom. spiration to create new works. J: How did things work out in HIAP differ from RU, and what J: If you could, would you do in the past five years, so I think practice with the group of art- would you consider as similar- something differently? I gained a lot of ideas how to J: On temporality: you were ists and so many institutional ities? further develop our networking Jenni: Could you describe brief- able to divide your residency partners involved in your proj- B: I would have somehow and interlinking aspects as well ly how you formulated your into two parts. Could you elab- ect: Finnish Cultural Institute, B: The biggest difference be- found a way for all the artists as the planning and timing of project idea? What were the orate on the reasons for this, HIAP and The Finnish Muse- tween the two programs is that to be able to work with the col- public events. RU is extremely key thoughts and motivations and what kinds of implications um of Photography? HIAP is more of a centralized lection of the Finnish Museum efficient in managing the huge behind the concept? Why did this had for your Mobius expe- entity, your gallery space, the of Photography. In our case the number of residencies spread it take this form? What kind of rience? B: It seems like a lot: five artists studios and housing are all on two New York artists worked out in studios all across Brook- process was it? from Helsinki, two from New the island of Suomenlinna with with other archival collections. lyn and Queens. B: The first reason was a pure- York, several institutions and a three studios at Cable Factory, B: The idea started from the ly practical one since I was not graphic designer, but because whereas RU has one central This article was originally featured B: You were in New York during desire to work with a group able to take off from my work we had this time of nearly sev- location in Carroll Gardens, on m0bius.net, the online archive of the art fair week where fairs of Finnish artists who all have for 4–6 weeks in one go, so I en months to prepare, every- Brooklyn, studios in several lo- the Mobius Fellowship Program in such as the Armory Show, In- a photo based practice in one had to divide it into two visits. thing went very smoothly and cations throughout Brooklyn August 2015. dependent, Spring Break Show way or another. I also wanted This turned out to be a great the process was really a pleasur- and Manhattan and housing and Moving Image, to name a to commission them to create thing for the project since it able experience. I have to add throughout the city of New few, took place. What was your new work for the exhibition allowed much more time for that the Finnish Cultural Insti- York. In terms of programs

28 Boshko Boskovic HIAP 29 Mobius Residency Programme HIAP Jasper Bruijns: (dis)Connect

We live in an individualistic culture. If we look the dentist’s for example. These roles are strict at the numbers we can say that the urban places and therefore do not allow a lot of room for are the hotspots of loneliness. The urban loca- self-expression within those social parameters. tions offer endless possibilities, which in return We as humans do not enjoy being alone. Hu- can shape our personal prisons. Therein lies a mans are social animals. People simply attract contradiction; we strive to make real connec- other people. Independence is highly valued in tions but so often we tend to avoid it. Western and Northern Europe, where people as (dis)Connect is based on a research on how individuals are responsible for their own hap- people interact with each other. Recent results piness and wellbeing. This can be great but for show that one out of three people in Western some individualism can have a huge downside and Northern Europe feel isolated from time to as well. These days we still like to be aware of time. What is causing this, can we recognise it in other people but we don’t easily take the effort our own behaviour, and more importantly, what to connect to each other. So basically we try to does this disconnection look like? create the idea that we are not alone. After making the film Welterusten in 2014, I The collecting of observations, which move asked myself: is there a way to get more out of between the borders of film and photography, the observational visual style concerning the plays a lot with the element of time. Some ob- thematic of my work? Loneliness, urbanisation servations are very subtle and others a bit more and social behaviours were the starting point of aggressive. I needed to create a space between the installation (dis)Connect, shaped at the inter- them so that one will not overrule the other. section of film and photography. I was interest- HIAP Gallery Augusta offered that possibility, ed in making an installation that shows short where the tranquillity of the space could ask for moments in time through cinematic approach. the required concentration of the viewer. These moments create insight into how discon- I worked in a non-narrated manner. The ob- nection looks like in our daily lives. servations needed to be quite large in size be- I wondered whether this disconnection is vis- cause of the installation’s subtle ways of com- ible in all aspects of our lives such as entertain- munication and its cinematic backgrounds. The ment, social media, relaxation, traveling and gallery space was transformed into a ‘walk-in’ communication etc. This research resulted in photo booth, drawing many influences from the many short observations in the public domain, cinema. The people and the surroundings of both physical and virtual, and showed that the the observations had to be presented in a way disconnection we share can be found within all that the viewer would slowly get sucked into it. of these aspects. Why is that? I believe it has something to do with the societal laws and the With his short film Welterusten (Goodnight) Jasper social roles we play. We teach ourselves different Bruijns won the TENT Academy Award 2014 for best behavioural rules, which differ from every so- video art from graduating students as well as the Open cial role we portray. In traffic, we tend to behave Public Award. This granted him a two-month award JASPER BRUIJNS, ‘(dis)Connect’, differently from how we behave when we are at residency at HIAP in February–March 2015. HIAP Gallery Augusta, Mar 6 –19, 2015.

30 Jasper Bruijns HIAP 31 Residency Collaboration CBK Rotterdam: TENT - HIAP HIAP Juhyun Choi: Engravings

JUHYUN CHOI, Troll, 2015

My engravings were inspired by Suomenlinna, I was especially interested in the wood where I spent one month in artist residency. and the tree – an ambivalent being that lives From this old sea fortress, everyday I could see in two worlds: under ground and in the air, big ferries, while tunnels and caves made out past and present. It is sedentary when alive of stones carved the layers of time. I wanted and it travels when transformed into a boat. to create a relation between the place where These woodcuts are, in a certain way, dig- I stood and the materials on which I engrave ging in the roots of the place where I had images. lived, thus forever carving the memories. JUHYUN CHOI, Winter and Summer, 2015

32 Juhyun Choi HIAP 33 CUNE Comics in Residence HIAP Teresa Dillon: Urban Hut

I was selected for the HIAP, British Council and Helsinki Design Week Residency, 2015. The residency provided the means to kick-start the Urban Hut project, which looks at creating a free-to-use Urban Hut for Helsinki city-centre. It draws on existing traditions such as the Finn- ish Wilderness Huts, which are promoted by na- tionalparks.fi and provide people with basic shel- ter, while they enjoy areas of “natural” beauty. Another similar structure is the Bothy, which can be found in Scotland and other parts of the Teresa Dillon at ‘Urban Hut Talk’ during Helsinki Design Week 2015. UK. Traditionally Bothies were used by farm © Aino Salmi / Archinfo labourers as overnight places to stay, while tending large estates. Now the Mountain Bothy As- sociation, which is a volunteer network, main- tains these cottages so that people can rest in at DEMOS, Helsinki with members of the city Museum of Finnish Architecture hosted. The them while hiking or traveling across the coun- council and other potential collaborators and Museum has agreed to further support the proj- try. I see Wilderness Huts and Bothies as special partners, which was really useful and lead to ect and I am now working with Tuomo on how spaces where we relax, contemplate and enjoy further understanding the realities of how this the community service and associated booking the landscape. They are also examples of free, could work. and reservation aspects of the website will work. shared resources, shelters, which over time, we As Wilderness Huts are commonly used in I am also working on the community elements, collectively care for and maintain so that every- Finland, the basic concept in some ways is al- which will focus on working at a local scale with one can use them. In this way they are examples ready familiar. Also Helsinki’s Sompasauna shares the people, who live in the neighborhood in TERESA DILLON, Urban Hut Helsinki, 2015 of commoning a term, which is used to describe some of the same sentiments as the Urban Hut, which the hut will be placed. the social relationships that are at the heart of in that it is free-to-use and collectively managed. So for now, the project continues beyond the creating something, which we share and which we have around urban space and its uses, pro- Such local examples help when developing residency period but still requires further back- belongs to all of us. Yet when it comes to creat- tection, care and responsibility of city resourc- projects like the Urban Hut, although it does ing to make it happen. The aim still remains the ing such resources in our urban spaces, collec- es, accessibility and permission and what it not mean they happen overnight! During the same, which is to create a beautifully crafted, tive use and care are often met with skepticism. means to develop an urban commons, to name residency it was helpful to work with the artist fun and useable, free resource, which fosters a Additionally although the idea itself – to but a few! This is where artistic, aesthetic, com- Jaakko Myyri, who was an intern at HIAP. Jaak- spirit of welcoming and care and encourages us transpose the Wilderness Hut into the city by munication and design choices come into play ko really got into the idea and assisted with the to rethink how we can live and develop shared creating a free-to-use hut – might seem quite and the residency provided the time to begin documentation. During Helsinki Design Week, resources in our cities. simple, when you get down to it there are sev- to work on these elements of the project. This I gave a talk along with the designer Tuomo polarproduce.org eral “hard” issues to address. For example, land involved selecting sites across the city and map- Tammenpää and architect Anssi Lassila from ownership and rights in the city, assumptions ping them over 24 hours. I also held a workshop OOPEAA as part of the programme, which the

34 Teresa Dillon HIAP 35 Design Residency HIAP Branislav Dimitrijević: Interview

Branislav Dimitrijević (b.1967), Professor of History and Theo- ry of Art at School for Art and Design (VŠLPU) in Belgrade, is a specialist in art and film in socialist Yugoslavia and also regularly writes on relations of contemporary artistic practices and socio-political issues. Dim- itrijevic has been active as a curator and his projects include ‘Free Cinema Yugoslavia’ event, HIAP Suomenlinna Studios, December 2015. large contemporary art exhibi- Photo: Salla Lahtinen tions. He kindly told us about the projects he’s been working politics, avant-garde art and different locality, like a -tour to reach a “disciplined” work- on during his stay. alternative tactics of everyday ist, but to actually spend some ing seclusion, as this is some- life. Also, the cultural produc- time in that locality. I think that thing I have practically never You’ve been in Helsinki Branislav Dimitrijević at ‘Free Cinema Yugoslavia’ event, HIAP Suomenlinna Studios, tion and social agenda of the a very important experience experienced in my, now 30 for over a month at HIAP December 2015. Photo: Salla Lahtinen Yugoslav socialism has been emerges out of this condition years long involvement with residency in Suomenlinna. my primary field of research, of a changed living and work- art, and something that I find Can you tell us about the and the books I am writing are ing encounter. Getting away, impossible in my hometown. project you’ve been work- As a curator I find Finland and In late November and early related to that. as you put it, for me means to This is for me precious. ing with? Finnish art scene always inspir- December 2015, I organised an challenge my own perspectives ing. I already know many artists ad-hoc, or “makeshift” event In your opinion, what are but also to re-confirm some- However, it was a relative Thanks to the grant from the but there are many interesting ‘Free Cinema Yugoslavia’ in my the advantages for a cu- thing that is common for all of seclusion as I was regularly Saastamoinen foundation, I things going on which I have studio where I screened some rator/artist to travel and us. meeting colleagues and artists felt privileged to make use of become acquainted with just films from the Yugoslav cine- work abroad? What is it in Suomenlinna, and also stu- the Suomenlinna seclusion to recently. Here in a residency I matography of the 1960s and about getting away that What does your typical dents from Academy of Fine finish some writing. The con- was also mostly surrounded by 1970s, which is in my opinion you personally enjoy the workday look like? How Arts with some seminars and ditions of calm and tranquility artists, and by being a non-art- still relevant today as an impe- most? have you divided your time talks with students. I was meet- on the island allowed me some- ist in such a context I contribut- tus to think, discuss and share during your residency being colleagues from different thing which is otherwise quite ed to “open studio” event and knowledge about alternatives For artists and curators, as well tween working intensively departments and I learned difficult in normal working re- otherwise very dynamic HIAP to dominating cultural and po- as for artists-curators (the kind and getting to know the lo- about local educational prac- lations when one cannot fully programme. litical hegemonies. The select- of operator which is becoming cal art community? tices, which is quite important dedicate to the process of writ- ed films have in common an more frequent) it is essential for my regular teaching work. ing which is, along with lectur- And there was a movie attempt to highlight and reflect not just to travel abroad, just What is primarily important Frankly, I am not a “monastic” ing, my primary activity now. night, too… the relation between radical to see, record and touch some for my work at the moment is type so I cannot stand being

36 Branislav Dimitrijević HIAP 37 Residency Fellow Programme HIAP ‘Free Cinema Yugoslavia’ event, HIAP Suomenlinna Studios, December 2015. Branislav Dimitrijević at ‘Free Cinema Yugoslavia’ event, HIAP Suomenlinna Studios, December 2015. Photo: Salla Lahtinen Photo: Salla Lahtinen

isolated for a long time. In a to my normal working environ- traumatic historical events (like You are particularly inter- crucial matter for understand- give to young artists is some- nutshell, I find Helsinki a very ment, so it is not any place, it the Finish civil war) are repre- ested in film production of ing both the crisis of socialism thing that I have learned from interesting place. I enjoyed is a very specific place where sented or not-represented on a the 1960s and 1970s. in Yugoslavia and the crisis the artist Adrian Paci who said talking with people there and you both have a sense of isola- site like this. of the social-democracies in that he finally became an - art exploring similarities and dif- tion, which is good for writing, Yes, it gave some remarkable the west. Consumer culture is ist when he stopped being so ferences in our backgrounds and the sense of connectedness One of your research in- results, but I’m interested also a powerful tool for replacing concentrated upon himself and and opinions. I have also con- with Helsinki, which is just 15 terests have been consum- in other kinds of art produc- imagination with fantasy, and when he let the others and his ducted a small research about minutes away by ferry. erism and popular culture tion. Basically, I am interested therefore for creating a world immediate surrounding inside the conceptual art scene here in socialist Yugoslavia. Can in conditions of production of which is driven solely by private his work. in the 1970s. The “physical narratives” of you tell something about art in that period, which seem interests. I am intrigued by the a place are always something the topic? rather remarkable in compari- psycho-social genealogy of this This interview was originally fea- Your curatorial interest that keeps me engaged. I am son with the post-socialist crisis. cultural logic. tured on Academy of Fine Arts, Uni- evolves around site-spec- interested for example how the It was quite a vibrant and inter- My research is interdisciplinary versity of the Arts Helsinki’s website ificity. Are the locations historical narrative is inscribed esting culture. Generally, I op- and it involves visual theory as What kind of advice would uniarts.fi. where you work of any im- and presented in Suomenlin- pose the usual dichotomy when well as cultural and social the- you give to a young artist Branislav Dimitrijević was in- portance to your work’s na, which is both a tourist at- culture in socialist Yugoslavia is ory and some limited under- going on a residency, per- vited by the Residency Fellow Pro- outcome? traction and a residential area. analysed between the so called standing of economy. haps for the first time? gramme at the Academy of Fine Arts I am involved in issues of the “official” and “dissident” cul- funded by the Saastamoinen Foun- As I tried to explain, the seclu- “politics of remembrance” in ture. It was much more com- And, yes, consumerism… This Go there. Keep an open mind. dation. Residency is implemented in sion of Suomenlinna was for my own country so it was in- plex than that. is for me on one hand, a very Think about it… But, in gen- co-operation with HIAP. me very site-specific in relation teresting to explore how some dull issue and on the other, a eral the only advice I tend to

38 Branislav Dimitrijević HIAP 39 Residency Fellow Programme HIAP ANNE FERRAN, Uprising, 2015-2016 Anne Ferran

Anne Ferran was born in Sydney, Australia, where she lives and works. She was Associate Professor at Sydney College of the Arts, Uni- versity of Sydney until 2013. Anne’s recent photographic work is in collaboration with dancers, drawing on their ability to register and transmit subtle qualities in their surroundings. Performances for the camera can involve one, two or three dancers who impro- vise with lengths of coloured felt, the shifting shapes of the felt serving to amplify energetic forces that the camera records. During her residency at HIAP, Anne produced a new series of photographs in collaboration with Finnish dancer Ervi Siren. Initially Anne saw this as a stand-alone project, separate from her concurrent research into Suomenlinna’s prison camp period, and the Civil War generally. However, by the end of the residency connections were apparent. They began with the introduction of red and white to the colour range of the felt lengths the dancer was working with. Though there was no intention to symbolise the warring sides in the Civil War, those associations were apparent. Even more important was the way the collaboration with the dancer played out in this context; Er- vi’s depth of experience and her mature female dancer’s body made it possible for the photos to resonate in complex ways with a still-troubling historical conflict. This was an important development, particularly since Anne’s intention for the residency had been to develop “new” (meaning non-archive-based) ways of working 1. ANNE FERRAN, Occupation, 2015-2016 with past events and contexts. 2. ANNE FERRAN, Reprisal, 2015-2016

40 HIAP 41 Anne Ferran Australian Artists Programme HIAP Renée Green: Interview

An artist, filmmaker and writer Renée Wednesday Lecture series where you told Green spent the month of August in Suomen- that you have been filming in Turku Ar- linna. In Finland she continued working with chipelago. Was there a special reason for the film-project ”Considering Cinematic Mi- you to be back in Finland for a residency? grations – An Ongoing Research Project”. In relation to this project she gave a seminar at One of the constants of my life and work has HIAP Gallery Augusta, Suomenlinna. In this been the idea of returns: to locations, to ideas, interview Green summed up her thoughts about to experiences. This was my fifth time in Fin- the stay as well as artist residencies in general. land, and I have to thank the Academy of Fine Arts for its sustained interest in engaging with What advantages are there for an artist my work, as it is the Academy’s interest and to travel and work abroad? kind invitations that have prompted these last visits. The title of my book of selected writings is Other Planes of There, so yes, I do think that for an art- During this visit you stayed and worked ists to be exposed to a vast array of experiences in the spaces of HIAP in Suomenlinna. and impressions is important. These might, or Will the island be featured in your up- might not, involve travel, but most of my prac- coming works? tice and thought is engaged with issues of translation, and for that, I had to travel. The process of producing a film is a circu- itous one. In my last film, Begin Again, Begin How do you divide your time during res- Again, some materials shot in Finland and even idences between working intensively and Suomenlinna were already used, no matter if getting to know the local art community? their affiliation with their particular location was erased, coded. It is challenging to predict It is a combination of both. In this residency I what will come out of the materials I’ve been continued gathering materials for a film proj- gathering so far, but most likely they will make ect I initiated back in 2010 through the Con- their way into new productions, which I hope temporary Art Archipelago invitation. I also one day to share with you. read and wrote. I did also engage with artists and thinkers I’ve been able to meet through the This interview was originally featured on Academy of years. And then, I found the seminar hosted by Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki’s website uni- the Academy of Fine Arts in Suomenlinna to arts.fi. Renée Green was invited by the Residency Fellow be stimulating and a way to engage with others Programme at the Academy of Fine Arts funded by the living in Helsinki involved in art and thought. Saastamoinen Foundation. Residency is implemented in co-operation with HIAP. Last time you visited the Academy of Fine Arts in 2012 you gave a lecture in the Seminar with Renée Green, HIAP Gallery Augusta, Aug 26, 2015. Photos: Salla Lahtinen

42 Renée Green HIAP 43 Residency Fellow Programme HIAP Hanna Husberg

I arrived to Ireland after a two-week research trip to the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. During those two weeks the sun hadn’t set, and at those latitudes it wouldn’t yet do so in the months to come. The flight to Dublin took me over vast expanses of open sea to the emerald isle, famously green even through the winter months, due to its mild climate and frequent rains. I had been invited to spend two months at Temple Bar Gallery and Studios in the heart of Dublin, and was also lucky enough to be hosted at the St. Patrick’s lodge located inside the park with the national cathedral. My intention for the residency had been to use the time allocated to go through the material collected in the Arctic, and to conduct more in-depth research in view of developing a film essay. Taking Svalbard, a former no man’s land, as a starting point, would inquire into how the melting water of the Arctic is (in)visibly transforming distant countries, and influencing the HANNA HUSBERG, The World Indoors, detail of the installation 2015 socio-economical as well as the territorial realities of these locations. In travelling to Ireland I was interested in how the embodied experience physical, biological, chemical, digital or other, The installation consists of three types of trop- Gallery provided me good conditions for fully of yet another island, with all its peculiarities, became the main figure in In the Vast Ocean of ical houseplants – the areca palm, the moth- focusing on doing research and producing new could provide a filter for creating a relationship Air, an installation I have since developed, con- er-in-law’s tongue and the money plant – in work and also allowed me to familiarize with to the subject of my research. sisting of five neon signs and a film. While I a combination designed to produce ‘ideal’ air the Irish art scene. The studio at TBS&G was One connection between the two places soon hadn’t finished the project during my residency, conditions, together with a looped video on a very comfortable and the workspace was a good became evident in clouds. The Irish weather some of the key decisions on how to approach monitor. Bringing up questions of material ex- platform for meeting other artists. The staff was was particularly consistent; 18°C, clouds with it were taken during this time. changes taking place through air and how we also very helpful in introducing me to the lo- spells of rain and sun. On Svalbard, clouds Instead, I spent an important part of the res- come to notice them, the installation addresses cal art scene, and put me in contact with some were the main factor creating changes at lati- idency developing another installation The world humanity’s entanglement with a world made of Irish curators. I also organized a film screen- tude where the sun doesn’t set for four months. indoors for an exhibition on “vulnerability”, The and animated by the trajectories of things, being of The Free Sea, a work produced at HIAP The materiality of clouds and the transmissions Baltic House Lab in 2015 in Gdansk (to be shown ings and entities. a year earlier, which was followed by a lively and transformations they perform, whether at the Rauma Biennale Balticum this summer). The residency at Temple Bar Studios and discussion.

44 Hanna Husberg HIAP 45 Helsinki-Dublin Residency Exchange HIAP Angela Jerardi

While in residency in Bergen, in November 2014, I began research as a first strand of a long- term project. This research derived from an interest in every man’s right (which regulates public foraging of wild foods in Norway, Sweden, and Finland) and its relationship specifically to food security, migration and human notions of time. Following on this, through the support of HIAP and Frame, I was in residence in Helsinki in Au- gust 2015 to continue this work. While there, this research trajectory deepened, taking the narrative of the wild blueberry bush as a means to explore an interconnected web of social phenomena including: multispecies ethnography, the department of Geography and Economic human and plant migration, regulatory lan- History at Umeå University, among others. guage, commodity chains, seasonal labor, and Drawing on Eduardo Viveiros de Castro’s more broadly, the contingency of knowledge. understanding of multinatural perspectivism My stay in Helsinki culminated with a presen- and Anna L. Tsing’s notion of salvage accumu- tation of a performance lecture based on these lation, I am curious about the intertwined cul- ideas at Galleri Sinne, Helsinki. tures of plants and humans, the means through During my HIAP/Frame residency, I which humans engage with plants using para- learned about Kulturkontakt Nord and its sup- digms of supply chains, resource extraction, port of projects spanning across the Nordic re- regulation, and security, in juxtaposition to our gion. I was thrilled to then receive a pre-project nascent study of plant intelligence as it relates ‘MEET THE CURATOR: Angela Jerardi & Yasmina Reggad’, grant from its Arts and Culture Programme to the uniqueness of plants’ ”sessile life style”, Sinne, Helsinki, Aug 25, 2015. Photos: HIAP earlier this year, which has supported my con- of living literally rooted in place. tinued activities. This grant will support trips Contingent on funding and support, I hope for studio visits with a number of Nordic-based to develop this research into a multi-faceted artists and to visit colleagues and peers working series of itinerant public programs, including at contemporary art spaces in Bergen, Helsinki, exhibitions and performances, in these three and Stockholm. This funding also supports my Nordic cities in 2017. My proposed resulting research and writing, giving me time to further project, Characters in a forest telling stories musically synthesize these ideas into a cohesive research takes the musical form of fugue as a metaphor trajectory. It will also allow for site visits to re- and example for polyphonic curating and as a search centers such as the International Labo- means for us to sense our entangled nature cul- ratory of Plant Neurobiology in Florence and tures.

46 Angela Jerardi HIAP 47 HICP – Helsinki International Curatorial Programme HIAP Alevtina Kakhidze

Text Jenni Nurmenniemi

Alevtina Kakhidze, resident artist in the Con- and the daughter were translated into series of necting Points programme in Summer 2015 born drawings and comic strips. In these, the chal- in Eastern Ukraine, inherited the Georgian lenge of maintaining everyday routines in the surname from her father and was raised with- middle of the conflict as well as the numerous in Russian culture, in the artist’s words “in its personal and collective tragedies brought on by Soviet incarnation”. Having lived in Kiev and it, mix into poignant and melancholic, at points in Muzychi, Central Ukraine since 1995, with close to absurd, visual and textual narratives. a two- year research term at the Jan Van Eyck When Alevtina started to share them on Face- Academy in Maastricht (2004–2006), Kakhidze book, both she and her mother, known by the describes her own cultural identity as a mix of name ‘Strawberry Andreevna’, soon became Ukrainian, Georgian and Western European internationally known figures, referred to even influences. on major news channels. She was invited to the HIAP residen- Through this work Alevtina Kakhidze had cy thanks to her significant artistic work with became a mediator, who negotiated the com- the Maidan movement in Kiev during winter plexities of the conflict in her artwork and also 2013–2014. The escalating conflict between someone who physically traveled between Rus- Ukraine and Russia, together with the artist’s sia and Ukraine as the artist-spokesperson of personal biography, formed the basis for her the politically tense situation. Taking part in the work Where The Wild Things Are in the Manifes- Connecting Points residency programme al- ta 10 Biennial Public Programme. This was in lowed her to gain not only a moment to breath, Saint Petersburg, Russia in Summer 2014. This but also a historical perspective to the conflict. is also where I encountered Kakhidze and got During her residency in Helsinki, Kakhidze the opportunity to discuss with her the complex conducted research on The Soviet-Finnish War, dynamics between multivalent cultural identity, called The Winter War (1939–40), investigating sense of belonging and the individual and col- the similarities and differences with the contem- lective tragedies caused by the continuing mili- porary situation in Ukraine. tary conflict between Ukraine and Russia. By interviewing historians and specialists in Kakhidze’s artwork was the illustrated corre- Winter War, Kakhidze gained a basic under- spondence she had with her mother, who lived standing on the conflict that ended in Finland in the middle of the conflict-ridden zone. The losing significant land areas to Russia, especial- mother persistently refused to flee her home ly in the Carelia region. She learned about the for a more safe region, despite Alevtina’s pleas. consequent forced mass migration in Finland, This and next spread: Alevtina Kakhidze, ‘HIAP Open Studios’ & ‘The Independent Ukrainian Garden’, The phone conversations between the mother as the Carelian population were obliged to start Summer 2015. Photos: Salla Lahtinen

48 Alevtina Kakhidze HIAP 49 Connecting Points HIAP their lives anew in different parts of the coun- still aim to keep the Fenno-Carelian cultural try. Looking into the statistics on the refugees heritage alive. and thinking about her own mother, Kakhidze Alongside her research on the Carelian refu- became driven by a question: did some people gees, Kakhidze engaged in a gardening project. decide to remain in Carelia after all? Did any- From her beloved home garden in Muzychi, body resist and stay? Ukraine, she had brought seeds of seven herbs: The responses given by the historians to this Monarda Citriodora, Origanum Vulgare, Sal- question were mainly negative, but in order to via Officinalis, Mentha Piperita, Hyssopus find her own answers, Kakhidze traveled across Officinalis, Artemisia Dracunculus, Hyperi- the Finnish-Russian border to the town of Vy- cum. During the month of July, the seeds were borg. There she interviewed senior citizens, sprouting in Kakhidze’s studio in Suomenlin- seeking for the equivalent of her mother, a local na. On August 3rd, 2015, at a hidden, unan- ‘Strawberry Andreevna’, or stories about peo- nounced spot on the Suomenlinna island, they ple who would have stayed in the lost territories. were planted into the soil of ‘The Indepen- The encounters and conversations she had were dent Ukrainian Garden’. The planting action then translated into drawings and dialogues, was done by a group of HIAP residents, one around which she wrote and dramatised a short Ukrainian and many Russian and Finnish. To play. The play was premiered during the HIAP Kakhidze, the garden is the metaphor for con- Open Studios event in August 2015, but as a temporary Ukraine. It is still flourishing as I’m continuation to her residency Kakhidze would writing this in Spring 2016. However, according like to realise the play in the future in collabo- to the artist’s instructions, it is to be left alone ration with people closely connected with the and unattended, with only coincidental visits Carelian refugee histories, for instance through by passers-by. According to Kakhidze, “it is not one of the numerous Finnish associations that clear whether it will survive or not”.

50 Alevtina Kakhidze HIAP 51 Connecting Points HIAP residency evolved into ‘fed / up’ video (which Finnish tangos without any technology or am- Heidi Kilpeläinen: was exhibited at Huuto Gallery, Helsinki 2015). plification. Human presence and the eye con- Looking back now I realise how some of the tact is important in this piece, understanding of performative experiments during that residency Finnish language is not of importance, it is the IMPLICATED are at the root of ‘Implicated’ too. That resi- melody and the sentiment that communicate dency was hugely important part of my tran- beyond the boundaries of language. sition from music back to visual arts. I had also engaged in visual arts during all those years, but ****** my main focus was in writing songs for three albums. Feels great to be back. I feel free. grrrrrrr...STAGE 1....gggggrrrrrrRRR… Yet music seems to be part of my DNA...or STAGE 2....gggggggGGGGGGRRRRRRR- RRRAAAAA....AAAARGH...A....AHAHAA...E...RRRAW...GRRRR...AGH.. at least the desire to use my voice. So my back- RRRR STAGE ...3...4...5....6 IMPLICARE ground in music is clearly present in the current WATER WORKS! ..echoed the vocal expressions at my Cable there to the ‘solo’. videos. I see and hear them as musical compo- Medication of drinking water supplies [A Factory studio as I recorded them upon my I switched the camera record on and sitions. convenient light lobotomy] (Nazis) Earth’s lim- arrival. I asked my neighbours not to call the clicked my fingers…! ited resources.. police should they hear anything alarming This was the moment I had been waiting for! ****** .Inequality through the wall. My own, personal ‘guitar solo’ in this ‘band of Manipulation I had wanted to make a new audiovisual frustrated citizens’. La La La la la la la la...Land of Dreams...(Sat- Sci Fi composition for some time and the opportuni- A fit of RAGE! umaa) …I sing one of the most famous Finnish Soma ty arrived in form of a residency at HIAP. (My AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Tangos sitting on a chair…https://en.wikipe- Orwell neighbour in London wanted to call the police AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGG dia.org/wiki/Finnish_tango Artificial Intelligence after hearing some piano playing through the GGGGGGGGGHHH!! Tango Therapy Performance (Laulu- End of humanity as we know it 1%..tip of the wall so I thought it better to proceed with this One take. vastaanotto) was another regular activity pyramid project in a studio, preferably in another coun- Done. during my residency at HIAP. I performed Sounds like good old HK119 territory again try!) It felt ODD to be THAT ‘angry’; To express at galleries and refugee centres in Helsinki. It ... (my music character signed to One Little My first audiovisual composition was ‘fed / my own public and private, bottled up ‘stuff’! It was very rewarding and moving, especially my Indian Records since 2006) www.hk119.co.uk up’ where the video concludes in a rhythmic was liberating and scary at the same time. I’m visits at the refugee centres. The youngest par- I like including a bit of humour in my perfor- choir of gagging. The second one ‘Implicat- relieved I got it out. ticipant of Tango Therapy was a two months mances and work in general (when appropriate) ed’, filmed and recorded at HIAP residency, is a Saliva dripped from the corners of my mouth old baby girl, her mother asked me to sing HK119 had a pinch of that. composition of vocal expressions of frustration ( I guess I really got ‘into character’ ;) I’m glad for her. During one visit we all cried togeth- ‘Implicare’ performance resonates with that during difficult times. If UK (I live and work I remembered to press the record button as I er...during another all the different national- world again. in London) seemed like a political mess so did don’t think I could have repeated that perfor- ities sang back to me in their own languages. I had the pleasure to perform a work in prog- Finland, not to mention the world...there was a mance. On that occasion the women at the centre de- ress performance of IMPLICARE to a small lot to vent about! I turned the image upside down on the edit- clared, “We are not immigrants, we are not ref- audience at a HIAP Open Studio event. I was ugees in here. We are a big FAMILY!” very pleased to experiment with a performance . This session concluded in singing, laughing where I didn’t just sing. The performance is a RRRAAAAA....AAAARGH...A....AHAHAA...E...RRRAW...GRRRR...AGH... and clapping hands together. I hope they got spoken word ’lecture’ to a ‘few, selected mem- RRRAAAAA....AAAARGH...A....AHAHAA...E...RRRAW...GRRRR...AGH... together for a singing session without me there. bers of the elite’ (the audience). RRRAAAAA....AAAARGH...A....AHAHAA...E...RRRAW...GRRRR...AGH... Few of us suggested that it might be a good idea The lecture ends with a performance of a under the circumstances. Boredom sets in easily ‘National Anthem for the 1%’ and a cho- ..flickered cropped images of mouths on the ing program. That looked and felt right. at the centres and lack of activities can be test- reographed dance routine. screen...on TWO screens! The equipment at A single screen version of Implicated is now ing on people’s spirits. I am looking forward to performing that again hand allowed me to do multiscreen tests for the on display at Beaconsfield Gallery in Lon- ‘Tango Therapy’ is a performance in which I with new, edited visuals in the background. The first time. I was in heaven. As a result Implicat- don. The space for it is perfect. A dark, cold sing to one person at a time sitting on two chairs visuals illustrate a ‘comic’ build up from frus- ed became my first multiscreen video. vault…a brick walled ‘cave’. http://beacons- opposite each other, while rest of the audience tration, to a full fit of rage just before a state of The composition begins with a rhythm, field.ltd.uk/projects/heidi-kilpelainen/ listens and follows the performance taking turns catatonia, due to the consumption of ‘IMPLI- which dissolves from color, to black and white, I was also at a residency at Beaconsfield Gal- on the chair. The performance is an intimate CARE water’ over decades. to blank, white, flickering rectangles and from lery 2015, in London. Experiments during that and personal performance of songs, mainly of (Artificial Intelligence Application can be

52 Heidi Kilpeläinen HIAP 53 HIAP Residency Programme HIAP HEIDI KILPELÄINEN, Implicated, 2015

safely installed during the catatonic stage) I age for a new video work, which is screened my fingers...! This was the moment I had been HAHAHAHHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHA- wonder about the ingredients of London wa- at Camden Arts Centre in London (May waiting for! HA HAHAHHHHAHHHIIHIHIHAHAH- ter... 2016). Laughter is the other way of coping A fit of LAUGHTER! HIHIHIIIIIIIHHHAA... I also filmed myself laughing during the during difficult times... MUAAAHAHAHAHHHH- HIAP residency. I am currently using that foot- I switched the camera record on and clicked HAAAAAAAAHHAHAAAAAAAAAAA

54 Heidi Kilpeläinen HIAP 55 HIAP Residency Programme HIAP Barbara Knezevic: On Unruliness of Things

Text Jenni Nurmenniemi

Despite their neat appearance and careful com- are exposed to other actions such as binding or position, the temporary arrangements by Bar- wrapping. These acts will alter the materials in bara Knezevic seem to function as sculptural unexpected ways. and spatial investigations into the unruly nature And yet, within the constraints set by the art- of matter. ist and the context of the exhibition space, these Composed of collected and recycled every- things are being quite unruly. For instance, day materials – those very ordinary industrial, clumps of clay perspiring heavily, wrapped in- commercial and domestic ones human beings side tight plastic sheets and slowly shifting their tend to surround themselves with – and care- form and creating their own sweaty ecosystems fully choreographed into exhibition spaces by in the course of an exhibition. Or, a massive Knezevic, it is as if these things would only tem- block of beeswax sliding from the wall to the porarily agree to exist as art objects. floor from a vertical towards a horizontal exis- Through editing and rearranging of mate- tence. rials such as plastic, wood, leather and clay, the In Knezevic’s works, the unruliness of mat- familiar shifts towards the unknown. These ob- ter manifests in manifold ways, questioning the jects, that Knezevic prefers to call ‘things’, are idea of human mastery over materials. They treated and altered in the subtlest manner so are constantly doing things that human beings that they could be infinitely reworked and put are unaware of. The notion of knowledge re- back together in a different way. In principle, lies on epistemological arguments and on the they could return to their state of being before idea of mastery. The not-knowing part is where they were transformed into art objects. Knezevic is trying to get at in her work, teasing Sometimes Knezevic accelerates these trans- out and amplifying the uncontrollability of all formations by igniting things, allowing them to the earthly stuff. burn beyond control. Sometimes the materials 1. BARBARA KNEZEVIC, Embers, 2016. 2. BARBARA KNEZEVIC, 2015

56 Barbara Knezevic HIAP 57 Helsinki-Dublin Residency Exchange Programme HIAP Karel Koplimets: Case No 11. TALSINKI

Project Case No 11. TALSINKI is a work that em- bodies two tightly connected parts. The first part unfolds the topic of Estonian pendulum workers who are working in Finland but who continue on living in Estonia or have some other relation to the homeland, which requires constant traveling between Tallinn and Helsin- ki. The second part deals with the Finns who are carrying a great amount of cheap liquor and other commodities overseas. Different sources claim that there are about 15,000 short-term migrants working in Finland. Some unofficial KAREL KOPLIMETS, Case No. 11. TALSINKI, sources have stated these numbers to be around Pigment print, 2016 60,000. Also, there are statistics showing that Finns make 2,5 million trips to Estonia annually and that 80% of the travelers are bringing back liquor. There has been a big shift after the 2000s (especially after the economic crisis) and each year more and more Estonians search for a job in Finland. At the same time lower prices and particularly cheap liquor attract a great amount of Finnish tourists to visit Estonia. This phenome- non could also be described as a kind of economical exchange – on the one hand, the Finnish construction market relies on Estonian builders, but, on the other hand, Finns are stimulating the Estonian economy by paying the excise tax. As without ferry traffic all previously described couldn’t be possible, the central piece is an image of the ship. The photograph is sealed in a glass box (frame), which is filled with a moving fog, to give an impression that the ship is floating among the clouds. The second part of the work is the video installation consisting of 1) KAREL KOPLIMETS, Case No. 11. TALSINKI: two video projections. The first video depicts Terminal D, Port of Tallinn, Estonia, Estonian workers getting off the ship through still from 2-channel Full HD video, sound 2016 hallways in Terminal D in Tallinn harbour, 2) KAREL KOPLIMETS, Case No. 11. TALSINKI: while the second depicts Finnish tourists carry- West Harbour, Port of Helsinki, ing commodities and liquor in Länsisatama in still from 2-channel Full HD video, sound 2016 Helsinki harbour.

58 Karel Koplimets HIAP 59 HIAP Residency Programme HIAP Jenny Marketou: the fields of art, education, and social activism BREAKING NEWS and to position the work of an artist as having social, political, and pedagogical impact. It focuses on framing and supporting the artist as an activist, an educator, and an agent of change. Although each member of my students collective is involved in realizing their own project and approach, one of their main and sharing themes is that of ‘communal knowledge’ and how it responds to numerous, social and political conflicts. In a world ruled by continuous BREAKING NEWS is the name of the ‘collec- at Victoria Square in Athens. The idea behind and increasing conflicts and questions about tive’, which is comprised by a group of six of those sessions was to use the theme, the strate- the economies of ‘justice’ and the rights of the my MFA students and myself, their professor at gies and the physical experience of PLAYING ‘unheard’, the questions about the right course California Institute of Art (CalArts) in Valencia, BALL GAMES in order to offer an escape and of action and how artists and thinkers reflect on California. The idea of BREAKING NEWS was to help the young people through the world new forms of artistic engagement and modes conceived as an extension of my spring 2015 of arts, play and games to reimagine a future, of representation that differ from the political semester graduate course that I taught titled which we thought was really healthy, especial- and activist art of the 60’s and 70’s are in the Critical Art Practice As/And Commons. Support for ly for young people that have been displaced forefront. this project has been provided with a grant from against their will from one environment to the From another perspective Breaking News be- the president of CalArts. Further research and next, as a means of new community, coopera- came for me a case study for pedagogical in- organization took place during my self-directed tion and security. vestigation on alternative economies for art art residency at HIAP in Helsinki in June, 2015. When working at the intersection of art education, which maps the emergent field of After the invitation to the 5th Athens Bien- and social realms, the very first question and educational futures and how knowledge can nial, with the theme OMONOIA which means communication should be: Who benefits from be decolonized through interdisciplinary peda- CONCORD, we all went to Athens with the the project and what are the expectations of gogy. This emerges from my ongoing research goal to initiate a series of collaborative proj- the project initiator and different participants? on Alternative Models and Economies of Art ects with community groups, organizations and Furthermore, we reflected invaluable methods & Pedagogy, which is inspired by the current schools in Athens, scheduled to take place as and tips on how to balance the project idea protests at Occupy Cooper Union in New York parallel events during Synapsis 1 - part of 5th with the interests of the intended young partic- City in building free educational futures. I am Athens Biennial in November 2015. ipants, taking into consideration the ethical and also interested in a number of basic questions Over the period of two weeks, I met with my structural aspects of such a collaboration and that attempt to break from routine and explore students in Athens, Greece and after an invigo- encounters. Despite the unresolved tensions, how art schools and institutions, initiatives, curating research program that I co-lead alongside children were able to transform PLAY into a rators and artists can prioritize their relation- the volunteers at the Biennial, we collaborated creative art experience and enjoy the nature of ships with audiences and communities through on a non-profit organizational level with vital a physical and mental activity such as playing current thinking around ideas of education, en- cultural and educational organizations deeply specially designed participatory ball games with gagement and participation. I also noticed the committed to the neighborhood’s groundbreak- 12 foot beach balls on which they were allowed difficulties of ‘collaboration’ and ‘participation’ ing artistic activist traditions such as SynAthina to color, draw and to write messages while they among my students, which occurred in terms of and ARSIS initiated by the mayor and the City quickly started challenging the large size of the their engagement from the formation of small of Athens. round inflatables with their hands and began individual project towards the pressure of big- Both organizations provided us with the pushing it around Victoria Square. ger projects that a contemporary art biennial resources to mount a series of public projects. Even further, my aim with this innova- creates, thus forcing new paradigms for practice BREAKING NEWS COLLECTIVES, a Public Project One of the projects consists of a series of meet- tive pedagogical art project and participation at Victoria Square in Athens with Syrian young people, 2015. which to my opinion are sometimes in conflict ing sessions with a group of about 25 young ad- during an international contemporary art bien- Sponsored by CalArts for OMONOIA 5th Athens Biennial. with the nature of socially engaged projects. olescent refugees from Syria, which took place nial with the theme OMONOIA is to combine Photos: Blaine Nelson

60 Jenny Marketou HIAP 61 HIAP Residency Programme HIAP Meadow, Meadow, Meadow

Text Piia Ahonen

Meadow, meadow, meadow was a refreshing In addition to choreographers, Kenneth exception. Bruun Carlson, Alli Mattila (PKKY Dance The multi-national working groups and in- Education in Outokumpu), Justus Pienmunne ternational co-productions are somewhat of (Theatre Academy TeaK) and Aino Voutilainen a rarity in the Finnish contemporary dance also took the stage. In some of the performanc- field. Meadow, meadow, meadow was therefore a es, the artist Lotta Esko accompanied dancers. refreshing exception - an exception that would Heikki Paasonen designed the stage lighting. not have materialized without the support from Meadow, meadow, meadow consists of three HIAP. parts. Three differently intimate meadows, A work of no less than five director-choreog- three individual artistic visions. Together they raphers premiered at Zodiak in March of 2015. form a contemporary landscape, where events The authors are the choreographer-dancers Eli- affect each other and are moving forward with na Pirinen and Maria Saivosalmi from Finland, the inevitability of slowed down avalanche. the Palestinian-French vocal and performance “It has been extremely meaningful making artist Jassem Hindi, and the Irish theater artists a collective artistic work, where each part had Ruairí Donovan and Cathy Walsh. Hindi, Don- its own creator, its own auteur, while creating ovan and Walsh as well as Norwegian Kenneth one unified work at the same time,” Pirinen and Bruun Carlson were accommodated at HIAP’s Saivosalmi say. Cable Factory studios for over a month during Meadow, meadow, meadow invites viewers to February and March period. witness the slow storms of the solar plexus, in- International co-originators of the project timate physical acts, many forms of extremism, were Pirinen, Saivosalmi and Hindi. Each of a crime that had already taken place, a strange them originally invited a single performer, but tenderness. This non-story is not a catharsis, the number of participants grew as the project but it radiates warmth and comfort. progressed. The critics praised the work’s courage to think both greatly and in detail at the same time. In particular, the middle part – meadow created by Hind, Donovan and Walsh caused a Piia Ahonen works with communications and lot of reaction and discussion. Its boldly inclu- press relations at Zodiak – Center for New sive spectator relationship was both praised and Dance. She has worked in the dance field since criticized. the late 1990’s, in different administrative positions as well as a critic. English translation by Jasmin Islamović.

From left: Ruairí Donovan, Aino Voutilainen, Jassem Hindi, Maria Saivosalmi, Elina Pirinen, 62 Meadow, Meadow, Meadow DANCE - THEATER - PERFORMANCE HIAP 63Kenneth Bruun Carlson, Alli Mattila, Justus Pienmunne. Photo: Katri Naukkarinen HIAP Katrín Ólína: Primitiva-Talismans

In 2014, Icelandic Designer Katrín Ólína began exploring Existential Questions in the In- formation Age. At the Aalto Digital Design’s Laboratory (ADD-Lab) research platform and in HIAP residency in Helsinki, Ólína’s work has materialized as the Primitiva-Talismans. Through it, she uses today’s digital technologies to recon- nect with the physical world. Primitiva explores the inner cosmos and the space between the psyche and the designed object. Through studying systems and patterns Ólína identified a set of primordial symbols that she then developed into a collection of 40 Primitiva, High Priestess. Photo: Sebastian Jansson. ‘objects of awareness’, or Talismans. They ex- Previous page: Illustration: Katrín Ólína Pétursdóttir press existential questions and traits we either recognise in ourselves and need to bring to the surface, or that we aspire to. Talismans’, complements the collection. With Inspired by self-replicating patterns found an introduction by the English writer and in nature and by the mathematical beauty of award-winning architect, Charlotte Skene Cat- biological forms, the Primitiva-Talismans were ling, the book explains through text and images developed through parametric software using the archetypal structure of the Primitiva-Talis- a single base unit: a curve replicated and built mans and the ideas they contain. It contains 40 into meticulous three-dimensional patterns. short texts and illustrations and can be used ei- The origin of the basic shape is the serpentine ther with the Primitiva pieces, or on its own as a curve William Hogarth called the ‘line of beau- collection of ideas and inspirations. ty’ in his ‘Analysis of Beauty’ in 1753. Here the Ólína launched the project in the rear gar- name, Primitiva (from the Latin Primativus) re- den tower of the Helsinki Observatory during fers to this primary, basic shape that Ólína used Helsinki Design Week 2015. to develop her language of forms. To navigate the Primitiva world, Ólína organ- “It’s fascinating to go into the digital world and ised the content into a taxonomy, dividing the emerge with something that feels so ancient, objects into four ‘Kingdoms’, each consisting familiar and unknown. Something about the of families of similar tropes and overseen by a Talismans reminds me of the lava in Iceland, single ‘Guardian’. The Kingdoms of Seekers, but they could also come from the ocean floor - Doers, Connectors and Visionaries rule the Art fossils or artefacts from a long gone shipwreck. of Memory, Art of Change, Art of Love and The objects speak on many levels, they refer to Art of Transcendence. nature, philosophy and natural science.” Katrín Ólína’s first book, ‘Primitiva - Book of - Katrín Ólína

64 Katrín Ólína HIAP 65 Nordic & Baltic Residency Programme HIAP Georgios Papadopoulos: Technologies of Value and the New Aesthetic of Digital Economy

My contribution is going to reflect on the im- of economic valuation by locating how digital pact of digital technologies on the individual media intervene and signal the creation and and collective perceptions of economic value transfer of economic value. from the standing point of aesthetics, stressing The new aesthetic of the digital economy the importance of the representational capabil- represents a fundamental change in our expe- ities of artistic practice and its ability to pre-fig- rience; it is both the view from the capitalist ure the new visual vernacular that informs machine (the way economic simulations or- monetary exchange. My approach departs from ganize economic exchange) and the view of the dominant economic analysis of how money that machine (the way the algorithms perceive facilitates exchange and circulation, to the study us), overlaid with data augmentation, from a of how value is represented and communicated non-human-natural perspective (the viewpoint in the new regime of algorithms and interfac- of economic and security profiling), hyperreal es that currently shape economic value. I am and wholly networked. Interface criticism and pointing here to the cultural implications of the aesthetic analysis should explore the new modes mediation of economic interaction by digital of perception of economic value that address technologies, speculating on the new conditions the synthesis between the real and the digital, the physical and the virtual, the human and the Image: The Dogecoin Foundation machine. Analysis is directed by a dialectic re- Georgios Papadopoulos combines economics lation between criticism and the development and philosophical analysis with artistic re- of interfaces with a specific attention to critical search. His research gravitates around money and political interventions that aim at actual position of corporate logos, like VISA or PayPal, sis presupposes that the limits between the real and it’s socioeconomic functions. Papadopou- alternatives to the economic systems of valu- with national emblems, as guarantees of au- and the digital, the physical and the virtual, the los studied at the London School of Economics ation and exchange within digital networks of thenticity and value, or the function of cultural human and the machine are becoming elusive and the Erasmus University Rotterdam. He participation. To that effect a critique is going memes in the penetration of digital currencies and permeable. The aesthetic of the new digi- has worked at the Jan Van Eyck Academy, at to address the new aesthetic and the new oper- and their appropriation of the glyphs of tradi- tal economy and the aligned representations of the Dept of Aesthetics and Communication of ational principles of digital interfaces, including tional currencies as signifiers of reliability. economic value are a symptom of “the eruption the University of Aarhus and at the Universi- both their mainstream version and the attempts The starting point of the analysis is the eco- of the digital into the physical” (Sterling 2012) ty of Applied Arts in Vienna. In 2012 was to resist the mandates of economic value that nomic interaction with and through technology, following the reorganization of the market awarded the Vilém Flusser Prize for Artistic come from the edges of the economic system. whether it is simulations, digital interfaces, sur- around networks and interfaces. Digital tech- Research by the transmediale festival in Berlin. Tangible examples of this dialectic is the juxta- veillance or predictive algorithms. The analy- nologies like smartphones, tablet computers,

66 Georgios Papadopoulos HIAP 67 HIAP Residency Programme HIAP work communications into economic value and “wracking” (Genosko 1999, 88) the very idea of to the dominant organizing force of economic enforcing the normativities of market exchange economic value that it is supposed to serve. Dig- organization. Their influence on the scale and and private property on digital networks. Mon- ital monetary media are propagating circulation the scope of economic interaction combined etary media trace value by employing symbolic for its own right, breaking the relations of val- with their everyday use, are contributing the and iconographic elements, at the same time as uation to individual desire, collective morality construction of a new homo economicus as they they safeguard the authenticity of these repre- and social significance. Circulation becomes the challenge the foundations of our understanding sentations by visible and invisible security tech- essence of the market system and subordinates of economic value and of the principles of op- nologies. Associative relations between graphics economic value to networks and interfaces. eration of the economic system. and haptics, between text and image, between The proliferation of digital media of ex- encryption and surveillance — relations based change and transmission has increased the scale References: on culturally specific meanings and shared pre- and scope of economic transactions, altering the suppositions about the economy — inform and individual relations to economic value. Media, BAZZICHELLI, TATIANA. Disrupting Business. Georgios Papadopoulos at ‘AID-forum - Skill of Economy: shape the collective representations of value in monetary or not, alter the human perception London: Routledge, 2013. Artistic Research and Philosophy of Science’ seminar, media of exchange and transmission (Papado- by transforming the relations among the senses FRAME, W. SCOTT AND LAWRENCE J. White Metsätalo, Helsinki, February 2016. Photo: Salla Lahtinen “Empirical Studies of Financial Innovation; Lots of poulos 2015, 8). and disrupting the psycological equilibrium of Talk, Little Action?” Journal of Economic Literature 42, ( 1 Georg Simmel described money as the “pur- the individual user. The extension of oneself 1 (2004): 116-114. CCTV cameras, GPS, social networking, sim- est reification of means, a concrete instrument through mediation is accompanied by numb- FLUSSER, VILÉM. Towards a Philosophy of Photography. ulations, automated trading, recognition and which is absolutely identical with its abstract ness, a strategy resorted by the body to restore London: Reaktion Books, 2000 [1983] profiling algorithms, are rising to super-ubiquity, concept” (Simmel 1990, 211) referring to its the psychological equilibrium and to protect it- GENETTE, GÉRARD. Paratexts; Thresholds of Interpreta- conditioning individual and collective economic ability to simultaneously signify economic val- self from over-stimulation of the senses.( 2 The tion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. behavior including the behavior of states, banks ue and mediate in social exchanges. In a sim- amplification and the acceleration of the circu- GENOSKO, GARY. McLuhan and Baudrillard; the Masters of Implosion. London, Routledge, 1999. and corporations. Yet all this is happening in ilar fashion, Marshal McLuhan talked about lation of economic value amputates the ability an intellectual environment informed by the MCLUHAN, MARSHAL. Understanding Media; The money as the “coolest of all media”, a medium of the individual to experience the enjoyment Extentions of Man. Corte Madera: Gingko Press, 1994. monetarist ideas about the neutrality of money, that is its own message.( 1 The self-referentiality promised by prices, at the same time as the PAPADOPOULOS, GEORGIOS. “Between Rules and and by theories that tend to ignore the social of money gets intensified by the acceleration desire that underlies economic value becomes Power: Money as an Institution Sanctioned by Political significance of the technological mediations of caused by new digital technologies in bank- blunt. The failure of satisfaction in a market Authority.” Journal of Economic Issues 43, 4 (2009): economic value. ing and finance. The new hyper-real and dis- system of amplification and over-stimulation, is 951-969. The capacity of digital technologies to rep- connected digital money has a transformative caused but also obscured by the digitalization PAPADOPOULOS, G. Notes towards a Critique of Money, Jan Van Eyck Academy: Maastricht, 2011. resent and signify economic value conditions power on the individual and the market system and the acceleration of the circulation of eco- our perception of it and our ability for econom- PAPADOPOULOS, G. Grexit. Berlin: transmediale, alike. It challenges the tools of economic man- nomic value, with the subject falling victim to 2012. ic valuation. The digital, simulated, existence of agement, be it the econometric algorithms of the ‘self-amputation’ of its own ability to enjoy. PAPADOPOULOS, G. “Money and Value: a Synthesis the ‘new economy’ presents itself as the ultimate national planning or the automated trading sys- The new socio-technological paradigm of the State Theory of Money and Original Institution- horizon of value, employing money and its fac- tems of financial speculation, “rendering” and transforms the individual sensibilities in the al Economics.” Journal of Philosophical Economics 7, simile of objectivity in an attempt to support market at the same time as it challenges the 2 (2013): 1-22. the reconfiguration of the market in the image cultural foundations of the economy produc- PAPADOPOULOS, G. “A Critical Engagement with Monetary Interfaces.” A Peer Reviewed Journal About ..., of electronic networks. The profound theoret- 1 “There is a basic principle that dis- ing a new imagery of value that fits the format ical consequences of the circulation of money 3, 1 (2014) Web. http://www.aprja.net/?p=1780 tinguishes a hot medium like radio from a cool of the new media of circulation and electron- PAPADOPOULOS, G. “Currency and the collective in networks and interfaces and its consequent one like the telephone, or a hot medium like the ic networks. Digital technologies have evolved representations of authority, nationality and value.” digitalization should direct the aesthetic inquiry movie from a cool one like TV. A hot medium from a mere medium of economic circulation Journal of Cultural Economy, forthcoming 2015a. of economic value. The ability of digital tech- is one that extends one single sense in “high DOI:10.1080/17530350.2014.989884 nologies to represent and signify economic val- definition.” High definition is the state of being PAPADOPOULOS, G. “Blockchain and Digital well filled with data. A photograph is, visually, Payments: An Institutionalist Analysis of Cryptocurren- ue obviously influences our understanding of 1 “Technology alters sense ratios or pat- “high definition.” A cartoon is “low definition,” cies.” In David Lee Kuo Chuen (ed.) The Handbook of the concept. Digital media communicate the terns of perception steadily and without resis- economic significance of social relations, and simply because very little visual information is Digital Currencies. Chennai: Elsevier, forthcoming 2015b. tance.” McLuhan (1994, 31). PAPADOPOULOS, G. “Money and Technological quantify them according to the uniform orga- provided. Telephone is a cool medium, or one of low definition, because the ear is given a 2 “The principle of self-amputation Innovation.” Forthcoming Journal of Economic Issues nizing standard of price (Papadopoulos 2011, Vol 49, 1 (March 2015c). meager amount of information. And speech is a as an immediate relief of strain on the central 53). In this capacity the media that instantiate SIMMEL, GEORG. The Philosophy of Money. London: cool medium of low definition, because so little nervous system applies very readily to the origin money function as an integral part of interfaces Routledge, 1990. is given and so much has to be filled in by the of the media of communication from speech to of economic participation, transforming net- STERLING, BRUCE. An Essay on the New Aesthetic. listener.” McLuhan (1993, 39) computer.” McLuhan (1994, 64) Wired, 2.4.2012. Web.

68 Georgios Papadopoulos HIAP 69 HIAP Residency Programme HIAP Alexis Rodolphe: TXT

This year HIAP launched a sound art residency programme in collaboration with SAMA (Sound Art and Sonic Arts education) programme at University of the Arts Helsinki. SAMA is collaboration between the Sibelius Academy, the Theatre Academy Helsinki and the Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki. This cooperation had been initiated before 2013 sans the full programme and the official name. In the Spring 2015 the first guest of this programme was French sound artist Rodol- phe Alexis, who works with field recordings, SAMA Field Recordings workshop: Visiting artist Rodolphe Alexis electroacoustic composition, radio pieces and and student Minna Kallinen (The Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki) site-specific installations and holds a particular interest in bioacoustics and phonography. Alexis is a founding partner of the sound art as well as Helsinki centre and during a short organisation Double Entendre and one half of trip at Nuuksio National Park. At the end of the electroacoustic duo OttoannA. His work the residency, a concert with Rodolphe Alexis has been published on various record labels in- and students from the workshop was held at SAMA Field Recordings workshop on Suomenlinna, student cluding Impulsive Habitat, Herbal Internation- HIAP Gallery Augusta on Suomenlinna Island Davis Ozolins testing a hydrophone. Photo: Alexis Rodolphe al, Touch Radio and Gruenrekorder, and he on May 15th. During this concert, acousmatic currently works as a sound recordist and sound compositions using recordings from Suomen- designer for motion design productions, docu- linna were performed on six audio channels. mentaries, museums and institutions. In addition to Rodolphe Alexis’ own cre- As part of his one-month residency, Alexis ation, students from the University of the Arts organised a one-week workshop about field re- Helsinki performed acousmatic compositions cording, basics of audio engineering as well as based on their own recordings from Suomen- acousmatic composition followed by a lecture linna. Other performers included Minna at the Sibelius Academy. During his residency, Kallinen (KuvA), Davis Ozolins (SibA), Kris- Alexis recorded sound material on the island tian Jalava (KuvA) and Jani Purhonen (KuvA).

70 Alexis Rodolphe HIAP 71 Osmosis HIAP Jenna Sutela & Martti Kalliala: Disruption Begins at Home: The Loft

Text Jenna Sutela

Disruption Begins at Home is a project on the re- to function as a setting for a one-day exhibition lationship between housing, debt, liquidity and exploring semi-public living, the idea of job-re- ‘disruptive’ technological innovation. It consid- lated housing as basic income and life qua pro- ers the home/house/apartment as no longer duction. Some of the objects in the show, such only an apparatus for the reproduction of life – as a ceramic kimono by Raija Cammarano and ‘a machine for living’ – but as a site of produc- a pile of tatami mats from Helsingin Ju-jutsuk- tion, both in terms of actual wage labor per- lubi, were found in the premises of the cultural formed at home and, for example, the general complex that we then occupied. Other objects, absorption of all social reality into the market. like a diagrammatic carpet by Jaakko Pallasvuo The project got started as part of Objects on and a system of drying racks from Tuomas Toi- Oil, an exhibition at the Helsinki Photography vonen and Nene Tsuboi’s Kulttuurisauna, had Biennial 2014. In this context, we focused par- to do with different domestic and building proj- ticularly on the fast online trading tools and ects by our local friends. powerful market analytical tools that the prolif- Beyond calling the exhibition together, doing eration of the broadband Internet has brought its interior design and living in the space, in the to the mainstream as well as the domestic sphere spirit of an open studio event, we also exhibited and how any home office can now also become our recent projects. Martti Kalliala’s set of cur- a virtual trading floor. Together with PWR Stu- tains referred to Andy Warhol’s Silver Factory as dio, we exhibited a three-screen browser based well as turnkey labor camp solutions sold online narrative interface, conceived as a hybrid off- by Alibaba. Jenna Sutela’s work was an aquar- spring of domestic trading terminals and app/ ium and a domestic data center a home for the widget-based consumer tools. natural computer called Physarum polycephalum, a The second part of the project, Disruption Be- single-celled yet many-headed slime mold that gins at Home: The Loft took place at the Cable Fac- was processing data in the house. tory in Helsinki on March 5, 2015. Studio 3, our Our new home starts here. residency apartment at the time, was harnessed JENNA SUTELA & MARTTI KALLIALA, ‘Disruption Begins at Home: The Loft’, 2015. Photo: Paavo Lehtonen

72 Jenna Sutela & Martti Kalliala HIAP 73 HIAP Residency Programme HIAP Danae Valenza

Text Katie Lenanton

In 2012, Australian artist Danae Valenza and and shuddering through negative tempera- her collaborator Simon McGuinness hand tures swaddled in layers of thermals certainly carved vast spheres of ice for the installation provokes a different world view. The duo- ar Composition for Ice and Choir. Suspended within the rived having worked together on a number of vaulted ceiling of the Mission to Seafarers mar- sound-based installations activated via perfor- iners hall in Melbourne, Australia, the spheres mative actions. These experiments were often slowly melted throughout the nine days of the characterised by open instructions to perform- Next Wave emerging artist festival. Each drop- ers that tested ways to prompt, shape and con- let fell into open barrels, their movements trig- trol acts of improvisation. The resulting video gering a series of pentatonic choral scales that documentation depicts an ongoing process of reverberated throughout the space. Over time, collaborating with musicians, performers and a layered soundscape of sometimes cacophon- ever-changing nature itself. ic harmonies emerged, extracted and stretched For three months, Danae and Simon were through time. They were shaped by fluctuations based in HIAP Studios on Suomenlinna Island. in temperature, the presence of people and the They had developed an interest in Nordic cul- strange aura of the heritage building itself. As tures via a self-directed residency and mentor- the ice melted, a hypnotic chorus sung out, its ship in Sweden, which helped to put Finland winding rhythm adhering to the enigmatic rules on their radar. In Sweden, Sound Park (2013) uti- of its own creation. lised an improvisational methodology that was Having worked with ice in this way, a res- re-tested in Suomenlinna. Musicians played idency in the Finnish winter seemed a natu- along to a drum beat as they wandered through ral fit. Travelling from island to mainland via a Gothenburg nature reserve, keeping in earshot icebreakers, traipsing through snow showers of each other but attempting to be led by mean- dering instincts through the surrounding forest. Some 18 months later, Suomenlinna’s 200 year old tunnels provided a context for a similar yet Katie Lenanton (b. 1985) is an Australian more contained experiment. Four Finnish mu- independent curator who has managed nu- sicians were partially separated from each other merous participatory and ephemeral public art in adjoining stone-walled rooms, improvising to projects with early career artists. Her research a distant drummer’s beat as the chilly afternoon interests include the intersection of non-visual sun set. While ice had dictated the soundscape art experiences with hospitality cultures and within the mariners hall in Melbourne, here it friendship; archives and collections; and craft provided a relatively inconsequential external traditions. Her recent MA studies pivot around presence, noiselessly melting while the brisk developing speculative museology frameworks wind seeped into tunnels and extremities, test- with the aim of finding ways of working with ing the endurance of performers and videogra- ‘unworkable’ items in collections. phers alike.

DANAE74 VALENZA, Sound Paintings, 2015 HIAP 75 Australian Artists Programme HIAP DANAE VALENZA, Sound Paintings, 2015

To Danae’s mind, the tunnel improvisation prompting us to consider how we notice, let wasn’t entirely successful but the experience will alone acknowledge the latent remnants of hu- inform future iterations of this working process. man labour. In dialogue with this work are a Other field recordings, however, have crystal- series of ‘Sound Paintings’ that speak of playful lised into a new body of work, The Torn Cloud, bodily responses to musical performances, and which was exhibited at Gertrude Contempo- a soundtrack of field recordings, which were si- rary in Melbourne and Firstdraft in Sydney. A phoned from a number of cities. chance encounter with a collection of initials Time can behave strangely when you’re carved into stone along a section of the island’s temporarily living elsewhere. The anticipa- coast provoked thoughts about the residue of tion, expectations and suspension that comes human labour and the longevity of these im- with being somewhere unknown are as likely to prints. prompt a flurry of experiments as they are to The exhibition’s centrepiece is a custom-built actuate ideas that sit on ice, gestating indefinite- scaffold whose joints have been replaced with ly. At HIAP, Danae and Simon found time to cast bronze hands. It’s an imposing materiali- research, wander and become inadvertently in- sation of community or collective action work- fluenced by unfamiliar surroundings. These in- ing with/in urban contexts, monumentalising nocuous moments act as foundations for future anonymous labour and traces of human touch ways of working, illustrating the capacity of that remain largely invisible within our built residencies to accommodate art practices that 1) DANAE VALENZA, The Torn Cloud, 2015 environment. Its structure speaks of tenuous thrive on experimentation and improvisation. 2) DANAE VALENZA, Marble Arcade, 2015 physicality and the fleetingness of permanence,

76 Danae Valenza HIAP 77 Australian Artists Programme HIAP Triin Valvas: An Itinerant’s Itinerary

Text Paul Flanders

Some reflections on Viktor’s Travels, a forth- amidst the buzz of post-war Europe was not the coming series of ‘honest guides’ by Triin Valvas. extraordinary, but rather, a fresh and sober look at the situations we find ourselves in everyday. Triin Valvas is a production designer and illus- To defamiliarize, as Viktor Shklovsky put it, trator currently working on the first book in a or to intentionally misread, as Harold Bloom collection of ‘honest guides’ to places she’s vis- revised it, has become something of a necessi- ited entitled Viktor’s Travels. I had a chance to sit ty for me and my friends, as millennials. The down with Triin and talk about the series and promises made of bright futures turned out only the protagonist of these guides, Viktor – an in- to be blindingly inaccurate in our new blinking troverted Baltic native with the whole world in digitalized societies. It has produced, not the ex- front of him. What follows are some reflections plicit and tactical aimlessness of the Situationist on that conversation. Internationale, but a different response to anxi- “Of all the affairs we participate in, with or ety. One most intimately related to a distortion without interest, the groping search for a new in our relation to the physical spaces and places way of life is the only aspect still impassioning,” we find ourselves in. I had to discuss this sensa- wrote Guy Debord in the Introduction to a Critique tion with Triin immediately after hearing about of Urban Geography. Other avenues of thought, Viktor. the aesthetic among them, simply weren’t get- Viktor is the protagonist of a new series of ting us anywhere. What was needed, Debord ‘honest guides’, Viktor’s Travels, about the places argued, against the profound sense of detach- author and illustrator Triin Valvas has traveled ment brought on by the spectacular alienation to. (Think of honest as in the way people talked about it in the good ol’ days: as in no stars, dollar signs, reviews or ratings; something more akin to a feeling than a fact.) We’re introduced Paul Flanders is an art and media writer/ to Viktor, a dapper introverted Eastern-Europe- producer hailing from the Texas Hill Coun- an with the whole world in front of him, right try currently based in Helsinki, Finland. from the start. The guides always take place He’s studied at Reed College and Universitet in-medias-res. So when we meet him he is blos- de Barcelona and is wrapping up his Mas- soming into a product of his own time (which is ter of Arts degree researching the philosophy also our own time), and he’s off to greet a world and culture of IP regimes in the arts with the that is steadily and intricately encroaching upon working title: Cartographies of Copyright. his own. He’s recently been banging on instruments, The idea to write Viktor’s Travel’s sprung up in writing and organizing exhibitions, happen- response to an overbearing environment too. In ings and other exploding inevitables drawing fact, according to Triin it came about “from ne- inspiration from collective politics art technolo- cessity”. Triin is an avid scuba diver and part of gies and weird sounds. the package deal is that scuba diving (like skiing, TRIIN VALVAS, Viktor Travels, 2015

78 Triin Valvas HIAP 79 CUNE Comics in Residence HIAP in Helsinki happens outside on the streets, lands or general tourist destinations throughout in the markets, parks and islands in a simulta- the city and view them with a fresh eye. Triin’s neously exhausting and exciting way the end- illustrations are fun sketches of what it might less summer days allows for. The plot wanders mean to see what these spaces make of people despite through familiar and unfamiliar streets, gets what we might make of them. Put another way, I lost on some of them, pauses in public drinking get the feeling that Viktor’s good-heartedness spots, casually name-drops hit bars and hangs will almost always be tested, wherever he goes. out in inviting cheap ones. As a genre it’s 1/3 Not because good hearts, like childhood, must graphic novel, 1/3 travel guide, and 1/3 cri- succumb to the difficult reality of the modern tique of the latter by way of the former. Viktor’s age, but more because Viktor’s travels aren’t sauntering through the streets of Helsinki take only about the strange places he stands but the on the qualities of a late flâneur while simultane- strange things he stands for. To paraphrase Tri- ously ridiculing it – his leisurely aimlessness isn’t in, “Viktor doesn’t really worry about the sim- the product of wealth or caused by a desire to ple things, he doesn’t fret the broken schedules detach, he simply has difficulty attaching. or lost time. He’s interested in the meaning of It’s apparent early on that he’s soft spoken, things unexpected.” honest and nondescript. To a certain extent While Triin grew up in Tallinn, she had the it’s known he’s Estonian, although nowhere rare opportunity to visit Finland in her youth. is it stated. It’s not stated because being Esto- There seems to be some sense of familiar with nian isn’t really the point, except maybe to the Helsinki, with its history. She has a knack for TRIIN VALVAS, Viktor Travels, 2015 chagrin of Triin’s own countrymen, but works taking the reader through the old cobblestone more as testament to her adroit capacity to gen- streets, strolling through large open squares, surfing, sailing and other extreme s-sports) often guide’ wasn’t from her perspective, really. Well, tly offer up stereotypes to her readers in all their surveying the strong stonewalls used to defend takes you to strange and foreign places for in- it was and it wasn’t. It was from Viktor’s – an relatable embarrassing humanity. the city by the sea. Her grasp of an older histo- tensive trips. But on one trip in particular, a div- alter ego of sorts whose childlike ‘unworldli- As the first in a series the complex relation- ry than the one Viktor is consciously aware of ing trip in the Maldives, she had to stop diving. ness’ would serve as the ultimate lens to view ship between Estonia and Finland is ripe for this turns the spaces he’s illustrated in into places. She had been diving excessively, some 4-5 the effects of the world. Up until the moment approach. The hackneyed images of various Because Viktor’s Travels: Helsinki isn’t out as I dives a day for several days already. When the she had taken her break from diving she had types are illustrated exotically but always in a write this article it’s hard to promise any read- total amount of compressed oxygen and nitro- been oblivious (or blissfully ignorant) of the way familiar locale, as if stressing the literal mean- er will learn about Helsinki’s hidden spots, its gen reaches unnaturally high levels in the hu- the different sites and locations had channeled ing of something seeming “out of place.” At best bars or friendliest neighborhoods but I man body it occasionally results in the lethal her towards certain actions and behaviors, to one point early on in the book Viktor steps into can say they’ll see something honestly unfamil- ecstasy officially labeled, Nitrogen narcosis, a see certain things and move around the islands the gleaming tram waiting at the harbor to take iar. It’s not a travel guide after all–it’s an hon- kind of gleefulness that produces forgetfulness as if on a string or a track. “So, the idea formed him into downtown Helsinki when a jolt vio- est guide. But more powerfully, the reader can and lightheaded failures to check gauges and itself,” she says, like the moats around sand cas- lently shakes a baby stroller next to him, bring- see how the places we absently move through, gadgets underwater, often leading individuals tles do. ing down its curtains. Three heavy-set 24-packs move us. They provoke sensations in us and in- to drown. This did not happen to Triin, but she The title Viktor’s Travels hints at multiple des- of Karhu beer stare up at him and their proud fluence our feelings, whether that be a sense of was feeling a little lightheaded and after a series tinations but the book Triin is currently work- father earnestly beams at him as he tucks them familiarity and safety or foreign power. But how of stomach glitches after bearing witness to a ing on, the one she researched and presented back in. Triin’s ability to look through Viktor’s to accomplish this in our day-to-day lives? For gigantic school of pasty white humans chase a during her time at HIAP, details Viktor on his gentle eyes to get us to laugh at the stiff cari- Guy Debord, psychogeography is just that: “the lonely whale shark for kilometers she decided to maiden voyage away from familiar lands. And, catures we make of others, places and perhaps study of the precise laws and specific effects of sit the rest of the day out. what safer place to go than a trip to Helsinki? unknowingly, ourselves, takes on special preci- the geographical environment, consciously or- The radiant colors of the underwater world Viktor’s Travels: Helsinki (my own title) is illus- sion and humor as a graphic novel. She doesn’t ganized or not, on the emotions and behavior were not lost on her though: the shimmering tration heavy, detailing in color Viktor’s journey need to hammer home any moral points, the of individuals.” With Viktor though, we have bronzes, HI-C neons and high-fructose UV by boat, his arrival on the shores of Helsinki illustrations themselves “argue for things”, as an entertaining chance to see the familiar dif- blotches left streaks behind the residents scat- and a subsequent series of run-ins with locals, Dave Hickey would put it. ferently. I, for one, am looking forward to the tering around the tiny island resort from event old friends, fellow foreigners, tourists and travel- However, the book is by and large a-polit- next place Viktor travels to. Not least because to occasion and Triin with idle hands. So, she ers. While Viktor is constantly meeting interest- ical. It is not explicitly about Finno-Estonian Viktor’s travels are exceptionally fun to glance started to walk around aimlessly and sketch and ing characters, one gets the sense early on that relations or stereotypes, nor is it explicitly about through or entertainingly relatable to read, but sketch and sketch until she sketched an entire the geography of the city is the inspiration for Viktor, per-say. Rather, his naiveté is the occa- because each page is, in such cases, a sum of pos- honest guide to the Maldives. Only the ‘honest the form of the book. It’s summer time and life sion to visit familiar sites, be they bars, parks, is- sibilities.

80 Triin Valvas HIAP 81 CUNE Comics in Residence HIAP JANA VASILJEVIĆ, Suspended Disbelief, 2015 Jana Vasiljević: Suspended Disbelief

After a few years of making work around fam- together with the computer games she played ily history, shooter games, war and love, Bel- in the 90’s and a handful of historical accura- go-Serbian comic artist Jana Vasiljević decided cy, provide the perfect starting point for Sus- to start working on a graphic novel. The way, pended Disbelief. All the works were made during in which her childhood and the childhood of the CUNE comics in residency at the HIAP, her great-grandmother intertwine, combined Suomenlinna.

82 Jana Vasiljevic HIAP 83 CUNE Comics in Residence HIAP 84 Disa Wallander HIAP 85 CUNE Comics in Residence HIAP Current and previous spread: DISA WALLANDER, 2016.

86 Disa Wallander HIAP 87 CUNE Comics in Residence HIAP Ruth Waller: Suomenlinna, Summer 2015

Ruth Waller is an artist and Associate Profes- sor, Head of Painting at the Australian Nation- al University School of Art, Canberra. During her three month long residency period at HIAP as part of the Australian artists programme, Waller immersed herself in the lush and diverse nature of Suomenlinna by gathering samples of the particular seasonal colours and material surfaces of the rocks and life on the island, en- visaging them as the basis of larger paintings. In the following text, Waller thinks on her artistic journey and many discoveries. ‘HIAP Open Studios’, Summer 2015. Photo: Salla Lahtinen Ruth Waller presenting her work at ‘HIAP Open Studios’, Each morning and evening I walked the island, Summer 2015. Photo: Salla Lahtinen always carrying my little camera. I hadn’t actually taken photographs for some years, but on long, but the weather was very changeable. It Suomenlinna I rediscovered photography and rained often, but mostly not for long, followed of mosses and small cuttings from the vividly the island. I added granular pumice and mi- took hundreds of pictures, fascinated by this by brilliant bright sun. There were wild winds coloured tiny succulents growing across the caceous medium to the paint to allude to the landscape, which was so new to me. I had nev- and storms. I looked out for ‘Hattifattners’. It rocks. Using the plastic trays used to package geology of the place. These were demand- er seen so green a place – in certain glades the was great to experience the island in all these vegetables at the SIWA store I made a series of ing pieces to resolve- they had to read well as air itself seemed gaseously green. The mosses weathers. I had to go briefly to America in miniature moss gardens. paintings from very angle, they involved many and lichens and the changing array of wild- June and came back the day after Midsummer. In the still light of the early morning I was surfaces and I explored ways of ‘training’ them flowers were so bright, luminous and luxuriant. That evening the island was engulfed in a dense startled by the crystal clarity of the landscape into distorted and irregular forms using wires I wandered the foreshore rocks. They reminded white mist. It was very beautiful. A small group reflected in the various ponds around theis- and other props. I wasn’t sure quite what they me of Tove Jansson’s The Groke. The waters of of picnickers sang folkish harmonies far below land. I took lots of pictures of these inverted were; they had a vegetative look, something like the gulf had a strange, heavy look: sometimes me down on the foreshore rocks. It was mag- landscapes. a mutant lettuce. Some were more book-like, metallic blue, sometimes gelatinous and green. ical, like being in a painting by Caspar David In the studio I made a several new bodies some a bitplanetary. The more layers of paint I Having lived for some years in Canberra, Aus- Friedrich. of work, including a series of experimental applied, the stronger they became- they are still tralia’s inland ‘bush capital’, I was overwhelmed Thousands of tourists came each day. They small three-dimensional paintings- developed frail, but much more robust than the paper lan- here by the sense of vast space, of air and light, generally didn’t bother me (except when they by working into and distorting paper honey- tern forms from which they were made. I liked and intrigued by the small rocky islands scat- left rubbish behind; that was incomprehensi- comb spheres. I painted with watercolour and the idea of people holding them carefully and tered on the horizon. Ever since reading The ble.) But I noticed small clumps of moss would gouache enjoying the luminosity of their matte turning them around- like the planet in minia- Summer Book I had wanted to experience this. often be dislodged by all this foot traffic. So I pigments. The colours I chose reflected the ture, or some fragile and unfamiliar life form, It was summer. The days were fabulously began my moss rescues, collecting stray clumps qualities I found around me in the plant life of both organic and mineral.

88 Ruth Waller HIAP 89 Australian Artists Programme HIAP Elizabeth Willing

Elizabeth Willing’s practice examines gastron- omy with an emphasis on the collective experience of food. Her interest is in the sensory elements of food; smell, flavour, and material structures, as well as the ideology that accom- panies these elements. She works to isolate and recombine these elements of food, to open up new emphasis and directions. The result is a body of work that moves between multisensory experiences, the social or convivial potential of ‘serving’, or considering the political and eth- ELIZABETH WILLING, Birch printed Serviette ical concerns of humans who are becoming shirt (Printed paper serviettes, one size fits most), increasingly aware of what they eat. During 2015. her residency at HIAP, Elizabeth created a new Next page: ELIZABETH WILLING, MURU series of work and researched foraging culture Rope (TalkMURU cereal and saliva), 2015. both in Helsinki, and greater Finland.

90 Elizabeth Willing HIAP 91 Australian Artists Programme HIAP FRONTIERS IN RETREAT

2013-2018

92 HIAP ‘Deep Time Séance’, Kiasma Theatre, Helsinki, Oct 18, 2015. Photo: Salla Lahtinen INTRODUCTION: MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES TO ECOLOGY IN CONTEMPORARY ART

Frontiers in Retreat, HIAP’s long-term collab- What is also questioned is the taken-for-grant- HIAP has developed and initiated the proj- ing with the Frontiers artists alongside local orative inquiry into the intersections of art and edness of current globalised world system that ect and runs it in partnership with the following artists at numerous different sites, curating and ecology, has reached midway. During its first relies completely on an easy access to certain organisations: Cultural Front – GRAD, Ser- organising research visits, field excursions, res- couple of years the Frontiers network of remote raw materials such as crude oil or rare minerals. bia; Skaftfell – Center for Visual Art, Iceland, idencies, lectures, discussions, interdisciplinary residencies has strived to generate a deeper, Would it be possible to maintain the current da- Scottish Sculpture Workshop – SSW, Scotland; incubators and exhibitions. more complex understanding on the interlacing ta-heavy technosphere and globalized economy Interdisciplinary Art Group SERDE, Latvia; In the coming years, these processes will be entanglements unfolding between locally artic- if an abrupt change in climate or availability Centre d’Art i Natura de Farrera, Catalonia; woven together through a concluding exhibi- ulated ecological concerns and larger systemic, in ‘natural resources’ would occur? Would the Mustarinda, Finland; and Jutempus, Lithuania. tion that will take place in all the seven Frontiers global processes. physical and imaginary frontiers of human ci- Most of the sites are located far away from sites as well as on the virtual platform currently Ecological concerns cannot be considered as vilisations shrink again into more narrow hori- urban centres within fragile ecosystems such as in the making. Towards the end of the project, purely environmental concerns, but should be zons and localised engagements? glaciers, ancient old-growth forests, archipela- acclaimed thinkers and writers will be invited to understood as wickedly complex problems that In the project there are seven core sites, with gos, high altitude mountain villages or small, reflect upon the emergent knowledge brought require transgressing the borders of disciplines. their distinctive ecosystems and entwined eco- mostly depopulated rural communities. All about by the artists processes. The final sympo- Artists have the capacity to mediate between logical-social-economic and political concerns, these sites can be somehow recognised as fron- sium in Helsinki in Spring 2018 will gaze into and synthesise different modes of knowledge, that are observed through different lenses in the tiers, where the complex interlacing of human the future and pave the way for further interdis- which is crucial to the understanding of com- course of five years. Through their distinctive activities and the materialities and processes of ciplinary inquiries beyond the European Fron- plex co-dependencies between ecological, so- artistic approaches, the invited artists work at particular natural environments becomes tangi- tiers framework. cial, economic and political phenomena. This and in between the ecologically and culturally ble in an intensified, crystallised way. Through artistic and multidisciplinary in- ability is required in order to come to terms diverse locations, researching the specific ecol- Conceptually and methodologically, the quiries into the deep history of the Earth, into with a hypercomplex question such as global ogies of each site. Most of them get to work project relies on radical openness that allows the current ecological changes shaping our bio- climate change. in various residency centres (or engage more its participants to navigate across different epis- sphere, as well as into possible futures, Frontiers Questioning the notion of a frontier, that deeply with one site), circulating and mediating temological multiplicity and to generate differ- in Retreat aims to generate a more complex un- implies the idea of humans infinitely seeking knowledge within the network. ence instead of a singular narrative on ecolog- derstanding on the ecological changes affecting new territories to explore, conquer and colo- With these artists, who work across vari- ical change. This also allows observations and the living conditions of humans and more than nise, the project set out to investigate how sit- ous epistemic frameworks, methods and un- new knowledge to emerge slowly over a long humans alike, locally and globally. uated knowledge on local environments could derstandings on ‘ecology’, we are engaging in period of time, through situated engagements inform knowledge-formation on larger ecolog- experimental forming of knowledge – often in conducted in dialogue with the residency cen- Jenni Nurmenniemi ical changes that shape habitats and transform collaboration with local inhabitants and com- tres, local inhabitants and communities. Curator, Frontiers in Retreat societies on a global level. munities. So far the project partners have been work-

96 HIAP 97 Frontiers in Retreat HIAP Adaptations Utö: Narrative and Sensory Enquiries into Island Ecology

Turku Archipelago, Sep 24–27, 2015

Text Jenni Nurmenniemi

The fifth episode in the series of seven Frontiers Turku archipelago. Due to its geopolitical posi- Utö, September 2015. Photo: Katri Naukkarinen in Retreat incubators, with the title Adaptations, tion, it has a distinct history, infrastructure and was organised by HIAP and a number of part- social ecology from its surrounding islands. For ners on the island of Utö in Turku Archipelago centuries, it has been an important strategic in late September 2015. This excursion brought location influenced by the presence of a light- 68 artists, curators and organisers, art students, house, a military base, and a navigation station. the current changes within the Turku Archipel- pants reflected upon what kinds of understand- specialists of various disciplines and local inter- Histories of communication technologies, mili- ago ecosystem. ings of the local ecosystems these experiential locutors together to engage with Utö island’s tary infrastructure and ecological change con- Through looking into the various ecologies and experimental practices might produce? histories, its human and non-human forms of verge there. Besides allowing us to look closely (the marine biosphere, social and economic What kinds of artistic devices could mediate life, and the entwined social and ecological con- into questions of locality, the complex ramifi- structures) of Utö and its surroundings, the par- these understandings? The Adaptations Utö field cerns typical to the site. cations of global political, economic and eco- ticipants were encouraged to rethink how to ap- notes, photographic essay, audio recordings and This workshop, that took the form of a slow- logical changes crystallise in this small island proach questions of locality and the concepts of videos can be found on the Frontiers in Retreat paced incubator, set out to explore the meth- community. ‘frontier’ and ‘periphery’. Change was another research blog: frontiersinretreat.tumblr.com. odological questions of situated, embodied In the incubator, multisensory forms of ob- key concept, as the invited experts and local in- knowledge and narratives as a form of knowl- servation and communication were used in ap- habitants shared their knowledge on how the The workshop was curated by Jenni Nurmenniemi edge transfer and collective memory. The over- proaching the issues at hand. The incubator archipelago has transformed over the centuries. in close collaboration with CAA – Contemporary Art arching thematic question, through which these also provided the participants the chance to Historical perspective to life on the island was Archipelago (Lotta Petronella & Taru Elfving), Ju- issues were filtered, was the complex interlacing share and extend their methods for capturing opened up through stories shared by long-term tempus (Zooetics) – a working group led by Gedimi- of ecological and social change on an island situated or context responsive research. It fused inhabitants of Utö. nas& Nomeda Urbonas (Art, Culture and Technology that, depending on the point of view, is simul- local knowledge, scientific expertise that is close- Adaptations workshop aimed to form horizon- Program, MIT); associate partners from Aalto Univer- taneously at the forefront and the final frontier ly and empathically attached with the site, and tal platforms for knowledge exchange through sity (Professor Pia Lindman) and University of the Arts before the open Baltic Sea. diverse artistic approaches. Also, it attempted to slow transitions, field studies, subtle sensory ex- Helsinki (Professor Ulrika Ferm). Utö is the furthest inhabited island of the speculate with possible adaptations called for by ercises, screenings and discussions. The partici-

98 Adaptations Utö HIAP 99 Frontiers in Retreat HIAP ogy-related anxieties, setting into circulation metaphor of the Earth’s strata as an ‘archive’ series of sculptural energy objects, and, finally, or a ‘medium’, with spiritualist methods of en- Deep Time Séance: contaminating the situation with subtle perfor- tranced channelling of non-human agencies. mative interferences, the séances brought to- The Dentons were not an exception in their gether an assemblage of artistic means. use of otherworldly methods for the advance- Embodied Enquiries With two different constellations of artists ment of modern science and accumulating cap- from various fields, the two events revolved ital. In the turn of the 19th and 20th century, around the ways in which humanity coexists séances and other concepts leaning towards the into Geohistory and and coevolves with diverse substances (such as supernatural were very popular – also among oil, copper, coal...), how these substances have the scientific minds and within circles of politi- been turned into ‘natural resources’ on which cal power. Jones’ essay shows how spiritual dis- societies of the present century are wholly de- course, methods, and metaphors played a part Planetary Futures pendent, and how these materials operate in the in gaining access and justifying the use of the world, simultaneously mediated by and shaping newly found ‘infinite ocean of oil’, and demon- human actions and experience( 1. strates “the spiritual behind the bad romance between oil and modern Western culture”( 3. For Deep Entanglements of the ‘Rational’ the formation of the Deep Time Séance, recog- Deep Time Séance at Residency Unlimited, and the Magical nition of these entanglements was essential. In brief, the ways in which we relate to our envi- Brooklyn, New York, Apr 8, 2015 & At the surface level, 21st century civilisations ronment and its non-human entities are large- seem to be constructed upon rational econom- ly informed and understood via myths, beliefs, Deep Time Séance: Contamination at Kiasma ic, scientific, technological, and democratic and metaphors, and it is these we need to look Theatre, Helsinki, Oct 18, 2015 decision-making systems that are more or less into, when envisioning future scenarios for hu- detached from religious value systems and dog- manity. ma. However, a quick glimpse into the not-too- distant history unravels their entanglement with Resource Exhaustion, Petro Subjectivi- the spiritual, often downright magical thinking. ties and Paradigm Shifts One fascinating example connected to the the- Text Jenni Nurmenniemi matics of Deep Time Séance is provided by Humanity’s recently formed interdependence North American scholar Jamie L. Jones in her and coevolution with substances like coal, oil, recent essay Oil: Viscous Time in the Anthropocene( 2. and copper, have contributed a great deal to Slowly condensing into layered, immersive per- corded’ into its geological formations. The no- Jones brings into light the spiritual roots of accelerated technological and cultural chang- formative installations, the first two iterations of tion of deep time allows us to grapple with the modern geology and early oil extraction indus- es that seem to be abruptly intensifying into a Deep Time Séance in New York and Helsinki abyss of time beyond human comprehension, try through the 19th Century geologist-spiritu- global-scale ecosystemic imbalance. Our de- set out to form new kinds of ritualistic gestures and to position human existence in relation to alists William and Elizabeth Denton’s imagina- pendence on these materials is also central in and situations for subjective and collective en- Earth’s slow life cycles. Séance, in turn, was tive embodied research. In their quest for oil, defining how we experience the world, the for- countering of the unsettling ramifications of a popular term in the early years of the 20th the Dentons coined the then-novel geological mation of our subjectivities. Copper conducts human-induced climate change. Through dig- century, when it meant a ritualistic session for currents of energy and information, coal gives ging into deep history and the mythic undercur- communicating with the spiritual world. Both heat, oil allows global mobility for our goods rents of ‘modernised’ 21st century societies, the concepts share the underlying striving towards 1 See for instance ‘Energy and Experience: and us. In the past five decades or so, their ac- two séances sought to envision new metaphors something beyond direct reach or comprehen- an Essay on Nafthology’ by Tere Vadén & celerated global circulation has started to show and future scenarios for the Earth we inhabit. sion. Coined together, they signify a synergistic Antti Salminen: http://www.mcmprime.com/ also unwanted consequences. The concept for Deep Time Séance came attempt to form new compositions and solu- books/energy-and-experience-an-essay-in-naf- Considering the amount of valid scientific about through a somewhat alchemical fusing tions out of unlikely substances. thology data available on the human imprint on the bio- of two notions that might seem distant at first A synergistic attempt is a fitting expression sphere, one would think there would already be glance. The concept of deep time, introduced for describing the two Deep Time Séances. 2 Jamie L. Jones (2016): ‘Oil: Viscous Time a massive multidisciplinary movement towards by one of the founders of modern geology, Combining layers of 3D-animated landscapes in the Anthropocene’. An essay in the series finding more sustainable scenarios for the fu- James Hutton (1726–1797), allows insight into and live ambient soundscapes into site-specific Speaking Substances, published by Los Angeles the deep history of the Earth through looking immersive installations, working across poetry, Review of Books: https://lareviewofbooks.org/ into the perpetual circulation of matter as if ‘re- science fiction, and personal narratives on ecol- essay/oil-viscous-time-in-the-anthropocene 3 Ibid.

100 Deep Time Séance HIAP 101 Frontiers in Retreat HIAP ture of humanity. However, it seems difficult to What would a ritual for mourning the loss of come to terms with all the data generated by biodiversity and arable land, polluted water and diverse information and knowledge systems op- air, destroyed forests, and our increasingly toxic erating within the increasingly complex world bodies be like? system. Encountering anthropogenic climate Scholars on environmental movements, such change would call for synergistic efforts able to as Bron Taylor, have stated that to instigate the reach across the highly specialised, segregated kind of global scale paradigm shift called for by disciplines, and systems of belief and commu- the intensifying ecological urgencies, “humanity nication. With the underlying idea that artists would actually need to come up with new ‘religion-re- seem to maintain an exceptional capacity to sembling’ set of beliefs and practices, based on a con- cross and push disciplinary boundaries and op- viction that nature is sacred, has intrinsic value, and is erate between narrow categories of specialised therefore due reverent care.” Connected with this be- knowledge, Deep Time Séance set out to poet- lief is the idea of kinship with non-human life, ically meditate upon the past, present, and fu- and an awareness of the interdependent nature ture of our fossil-based existence, and envision of life on the earth( 2. new trajectories that could replace our unsus- Reaching the kind of ‘biospheric aware- tainable petro subjectivities. ness’ described by Taylor requires adopting a perception of time beyond the human perspec- Ritual Practices for Facing Climate tive, including the realisation of extremely slow Change planetary life cycles. This paves the way for an understanding of the constant change with- The choreography for the first Séance started in and around us, and puts human existence to unfold in Brooklyn, New York, in February, into perspective – without denying the fact 2015. The key point of departure was the site, that human activity, especially during the past a former chapel transformed into an art space 150 years, a mere blip of time on the plane- ‘Deep Time Séance: Contamination’, Kiasma Theatre, Helsinki, Oct 18, 2015. Photo: Salla Lahtinen hosting the activities of Residency Unlimited. tary scale, has indeed had an effect on the entire Working in the space on several ecology-relat- biosphere( 3. ed art projects, with accumulating subjective FCINY’s M0bius Programme( 1 in New York substances. For the Séance, Laitinen animated climate-change anxiety, my thoughts oscillated The First Deep Time Séance: Circulation in Spring 2015, I had been commissioned to eerily glowing rock formations and views of around ways of instigating change, or large- curate a one-night event at Residency Unlim- mesmerising, ever-changing landscapes, where scale paradigmatic shifts. The conflict between As part of my curatorial residency within the ited. Out of the above concerns, the concept the surface of the Earth had transformed into neoliberal quartile-paradigm for maximised for the first séance began to unfold. This hap- azure blue dunes of copper ore. This barren profits and any attempt towards more sustain- pened through an artwork that magnetically landscape was devoid of humans, although ap- able human existence within this biosphere drew others to join in. The core was formed parently formed by them. seemed paralyzing from both personal and 2 Taylor, Bron (2009): ‘Dark Green Religion: around a site-specific video installation and a The cyclic movements of this strange, de- societal perspective. I was reading about ‘dark Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future’. live music performance, realised as a close col- serted mineral world, rendered into waves, were green religion’ and researching the Whole Earth University of California Press. 2009, 2–10. laboration between artist Tuomas A. Laitinen observed from above as if by an extra-terrestrial Catalogs( 1. This, combined with the sacral ar- and composer/musician Matti Ahopelto. I had gaze. Occasionally, the view opened deep into chitectural features of my workspace, made me recently heard Ahopelto playing a fantastic the earth, seemingly to the insides of the pul- wonder what ritualistic gestures or ‘tools’ might 3 In this sense the contested concept of the concert inside Laitinen’s four-channel installa- sating sea of blue ore. This, in turn, was trans- Anthropocene seems still valid, without denying be needed for tackling the polarising local and tion Conductor at the EMMA Museum in Fin- formed into caves that were slowly filling with the multiple agencies of other than human en- global conditions that call for massive adjust- tities. See for instance a paper from Jan 2016, land. Laitinen’s broad artistic research into the reflecting spikes piercing through their ceiling. ments in our accustomed ways of living, and for on Science: Waters, Colin N.; Zalasiewicz, Jan; global circulation of copper came close to my Playing between the layered scrim screen struc- adapting to abruptly changing environments. Summerhayes, Colin; Barnosky, Anthony D.; ideas of the interconnected entanglements and tures, Ahopelto’s ethereally flowing ambient Poirier, Clément; Gałuszka, Agnieszka; Cear- shared agencies between humans and diverse soundscapes opened up portals into an unfa- reta, Alejandro; Edgeworth, Matt; Ellis, Erle miliar time. In this scenario, one could not tell 1 The Whole Earth Catalog, 1968–72. A C. (2016-01-08). “The Anthropocene is func- if this was the Earth, whether it was the past series of influential counterculture catalogs on tionally and stratigraphically distinct from the 1 Mobius Mobility Programme for Art Pro- or the future. The only living presence was ecology and tools for self-sustainability, pub- Holocene”. Science 351 (6269): aad2622. ISSN fessionals: http://m0bius.net/projects/deep- Ahopelto’s figure, hovering in the landscape, lished by Stewart Brand. 0036-8075. PMID 26744408. time-seance unreachable except for the sound mass oozing

102 Deep Time Séance HIAP 103 Frontiers in Retreat HIAP climate change. On an individual level, when What remained from the first séance was the encountering a massive issue, an unrepresent- intuitively layered assemblage of various artistic able hyperobject( 1 such as climate change with approaches. This time, the underlying theme, its diverse direct and indirect implications upon circulation of matter, and the interconnected human and other futures, one can easily become operation of materials in the world, was tackled paralyzed. In order to deal with the intensifying through an idea of bodies and contamination. environmental urgencies, absolutely everything The idea was to disrupt the persistent notion of should be rethought and adjusted, including the human body as a vessel with stable bound- the embodied, subjective connections we have aries, the inside and the outside. The leakages with our environment, and our relations to the in this paradigm were made visible through Earth’s diverse inhabitants. After an oddly puri- looking into how toxins, pollutants, and plastic fying group discussion, the rest of the audience become part of our bodies and genome through flowed in, food and drinks were served, and ev- air, water, soil, and accumulation in our food eryone took their places on the pillows laid out chains. in the space and took off on the journey into The uncontrollable circulation and infinite crystallised layers of time. combinations of synthetic toxins in our blood streams and metabolic systems, the radioactive The Second Enquiry: On Contamination waste from Fukushima, the gigantic plastic fleets in the oceans, all acted as key references for this The next iteration of Deep Time Séance was séance. For its three acts, Tuomas A. Laitin- commissioned for Helsinki in October 2015. en crafted three different visual scenarios that Quite unexpectedly, it happened within the again merged seamlessly with Matti Ahopelto’s framework of an annual international theatre improvised music. This time Ahopelto’s synthe- festival Theatre.now that had climate change as sizer was accompanied by Tapio Viitasaari on ( 2 ‘Deep Time Séance: Contamination’, Kiasma Theatre, Helsinki, Oct 18, 2015. Photo: Salla Lahtinen its theme . The venue was to be the KIASMA the trumpet. For each three acts, the image was Museum’s Theatre, and hence the piece would constructed in three layers, on semi-transparent be considered in the context of contemporary scrim screens spanning the entire width and from his synthesizer. different occasions, posted on social media, or theatre. Working within theatre with its cultural height of the stage, and installed a few metres It was as if humans had exhausted the Earth having been passed on as gifts. conventions, stage, and a fixed, frontal viewing apart from each other. The elements on each of the last valuable minerals, and this ceremony Another important element in the New York situation posed challenges for the immersive, screen were in a dynamically flowing relation was looking at the Earth from the distant future, séance was the passage into ritual, conducted embodied, and participatory aspects of the with each other, creating a strong sense of spa- with only a few tiny fragments of its materiality on this occasion by artist Tatiana Istomina. For séance. There was a danger of it turning into tiality. Again, the musicians were playing be- reachable to us. The remaining tangible frag- her Scary Stories project (2014, ongoing), Isto- a spectacle, instead of an embodied collec- tween the layered screens, gently disrupting the ments were manifested in the form of circulat- mina had used drawing and storytelling to ex- tive enquiry, aiming towards a more biospher- images with their presence. ing energy objects: small ceramic pendulums by plore concepts of fear, and to create a record ic awareness. Yet, the chance to develop the The first act started as a 15-minute sunrise, the artist Jaakko Pallasvuo. During the perfor- of personal and collective anxieties. By then, séance further, namely in the context of nego- viewed through a thickening smog, accompa- mance, these amulets were passed to intuitively Istomina had invited 65 people from the US, tiating climate change and crossing disciplinary nied by a serene soundscape. The sun’s slow chosen participants, who were instructed either Europe, Asia, and South America to tell her boundaries, was a unique opportunity. Thus, journey across the sky was followed by a series to keep them, or to pass them on to someone stories about anything scary in their own lives the concept was modified according to the new of photographic images, discovered from the else. The energy objects brought in a haptic or in their community. After that, Istomina parameters. radiating waters near Fukushima Japan. Ordi- dimension, as well as the idea of the circula- asked them to respond to another person’s story nary family snapshots had been exposed to the tion of some sort of strange capital in a form through digital drawing or writing. The stories radioactive pollution that had corroded them that could be read as an art object. However, and drawings were then edited into short films. 1 Morton, Timothy (2013): ‘Hyperobjects: into ghastly, distorted visions. These were left by insisting upon them circulating freely and Several of these narratives dealt in some way Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the slowly lingering on the screens, nightmarish im- randomly, beyond conscious control, the artist with the anxieties related to ecological ques- World’. University of Minnesota Press. ages dissolving into each other. In the second made a point of refusing their intentional use tions, and a selection of these stories was played act, the ominous atmosphere turned abruptly as such. Rather, he made them into ‘tools’ car- out, accompanied by illustrations. 2 Theatre.now, ‘Shared Space: Music, into swirling vortexes of toxic waste leaking out rying special, unnamed powers. Later on, in the The stories led the way into a shared dis- Weather, Politics’, 15–18 Oct, 2015, http:// of a giant, detached nose. In this violent sce- weeks and months following the séance, some cussion among a small group of séance par- www.kiasma.fi/en/calendar/kiasma-theatre/ nario, the music intensified into an act of ex- of the talismans reappeared, worn by people on ticipants on anxieties caused by the totality of theatre-now/ orcism, testing the physical limits of the audi-

104 Deep Time Séance HIAP 105 Frontiers in Retreat HIAP ‘Deep Time Séance: Contamination’, Kiasma Theatre, Helsinki, Oct 18, 2015. Photo: Salla Lahtinen ence. Again, in stark contrast to this, the third flowers and fruits, other tangible things in the subject of escaping from the Earth, Lindman thrive despite the consequences of global eco- act opened with a carefully composed, generic space were Pallasvuo’s energy objects, random- tuned the situation and audience for a mental logical crises, and the growing masses of peo- and soothing R&B-inspired muzak, into a virtu- ly dispersed in the auditorium. They were there journey. All the while, she was making ink draw- ple carrying these consequences, leading their al space on stage, an infinite marble hall, empty to be found and taken, this time without any ings illustrating the excerpts. The light needed lives under increasingly precarious conditions. except for a single human figure holding a mi- instructions. Following the theme of contam- for the reiki meditation session was provided by This completes the circle, leading us back to the crophone. In this final act, actress Anna Raw- ination, the whole setup was very subtly con- the light of mobile phones that audience mem- present moment. My concluding thought ties in lings performed a text by Jaakko Pallasvuo, a taminated by a choreography by artist Laura bers in certain seats were asked to project on with the questions about rituals and mourning fragmented poem or spell that in an ominous Jantunen. With four other dancers, Jantunen their faces. I posed myself during my time in New York. tone commented upon contamination and de- guided selected audience members to specific After Laitinen and Ahopelto’s performance, We need embodied enquiries into deep history terioration, drawing from a wide spectrum of seats, and during Laitinen’s and Ahopelto’s per- when all the performers had disappeared into and distant futures, in order to critically ques- references from Shakespeare to contemporary formance, while remaining seated among the the marble hall, the séance ended with a small tion and recognise the historicity of neoliberal Wicca culture. audience, they performed a subtly distracting tea serving on the stage, to which only a few of economic policies that aim to fast profit-making Printed on artisanal Nepalese marigold-pet- dance score based on an extremely slow, syn- the audience members were invited. This prac- in a quartile time scale, without consideration al paper and handed to the audience in for- chronised collapsing of their bodies. ticing of recurrent selection among the audi- to long-term economic, social or environmental tune-cookie style notes upon entering the space, This time, the ritual started with a collec- ence was more or less present in all the elements consequences. the complete text was only delivered at the very tive reiki session, guided by artist Pia Lindman. of the séance. It was a means to reflect upon the end, with Anna’s seductively spoken words. In Reading carefully chosen excerpts from science increasing polarisation between a small minori- addition to slightly deranged arrangements of fiction novels and contemporary poetry on the ty who will have access to capital and means to

106 Deep Time Séance HIAP 107 Frontiers in Retreat HIAP Text Jaakko Pallasvuo You walk through a white cloud of smoke. You are a hunchback, weaving yarn. Your nose begins to bleed. You are nearsighted. Sometimes you wonder A clump of your hair falls out. if a curse has been placed upon you. Your posture changes. Your back draws up into a hunch. A horse carriage outside drags plague victims to their mass graves. You walk through a white cloud of smoke. You tap your lifeless iPhone. You’ve been texting. You rub a rabbit’s foot, You’ve been looking for somebody. for good luck.

You’re in a forest. Dying is easy, it’s living that scares you (to death). There are three witches here: Fire, element of warmth, let me control you. Fillet of a fenny snake, Water, element of moist, let me control you. In the cauldron boil and bake; Air, element of storms, let me control you. Eye of newt and toe of frog, Earth, element of nature, let me control you. Wool of bat and tongue of dog, An iPod shuffle. Maybe you walk through a white cloud of Your master’s degree. smoke. The keys to your apartment. Maybe a good spirit hands you an amulet. You don’t know that the thing you’ve received You walk through a white cloud of smoke: is an amulet. Wizardry, Alchemy, Allurement, Sorcery The amulet will protect you where engineering has failed. Climate scientists conduct their research while Where linear thinking has failed. unwittingly destabilizing the social order. Cli- You count your blessings. mate scientists develop depression and anxiety, You walk through a white cloud of smoke. plagued by what some describe as pre-trau- The smoke makes its audience barren. matic stress disorder. The knowledge of our You are unable to have children. approaching end can be too much to take on. Culture can’t reproduce itself. For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the Plays are written and never put on. more knowledge, the more grief. No ideas worth repeating.

“A human being has so many skins inside, As civilization folds, we unravel. covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don’t know The future looks bright today. It looks a lot like ourselves! the past, when we crawled out of the ocean’s Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, depths. We learned to walk, climb and build. as thick and hard as an ox’s or bear’s, cover the We invented linear progress. The future looks soul. like a reversal of that. The sea splashing against Go into your own ground and learn to know us, mute and indifferent. yourself there.” On a piece of parchment, write the following 2277 AD, 1667 AD words: London SE1 Air cannot freeze me. An ashy industrial building lit by torches, Fire cannot burn me. windows covered with cardboard and burlap. Water cannot drown me. ‘Deep Time Séance: Contamination’, Kiasma Theatre, Helsinki, Oct 18, 2015. Photo: Salla Lahtinen Glass is hard to come by here. Earth cannot bury me.

108 Deep Time Séance HIAP 109 Frontiers in Retreat HIAP Excavations: Explorations into Interdependencies

HIAP Gallery Augusta, Helsinki, Jun 6 – Aug 30, 2015

‘The BodyBuilding Project: A Non-Conclusion’, Suomenlinna Island, Helsinki, Aug 19, 2015. Photo: Salla Lahtinen Text Jenni Nurmenniemi

Excavations, the second international group exhi- ki) that had begun within the Dissolving Frontiers exhibition observed the human relationships tivities and weekly gatherings open for all, the bition organised in the context of the Frontiers exhibition of the previous summer. Our shared with the diverse ecosystems of our biosphere BodyBuilding Project sought embodied ways in Retreat project (2013–2018) weaved together concerns around encountering the intensifying through affective, embodied and experiential for grappling climate crisis and for digesting long-term artistic processes, new commissions global climate crisis thus brought in also The approach. the vast amount of theoretical and conceptual and recent artworks by seven individual artists BodyBuilding Project, a multidisciplinary col- Throughout the summer, Gallery Augusta information available on the subject. Osmosis or collectives. Of the participating artists, Carl laboration led by Hannula. was inhabited (literally) by The BodyBuilding between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ was important, as Giffney (Dublin), Mirko Nikolić (Belgrade/ In their various ways, all the participating Project. Formed by changing, open constella- many of the activities organically spread beyond London) and Tue Greenfort (Berlin/Zürich) artists explored historical or emergent interde- tions of both human and nonhuman entities, the gallery premises to the surrounding islands. had been living and working at HIAP and other pendencies – the coexistence and coevolution The BodyBuilding Project aimed to establish a The first exhibition, operating as the basecamp sites belonging to the Frontiers European resi- of the diverse beings and things inhabiting this continuous collective practice that visitors could for the bodybuilding activities, was constantly dency network during 2014–15. earth – through acts of surfacing, exposing, ex- join at will. The objective was to collectively fig- shaped according to currently ongoing exercise. Other three, Barbara Knezevic (Dublin), tracting, reassembling, redirecting and rehears- ure out what kind of sensibilities, subjectivities A varying number of camping tents were set up Hanna Ljungh (Stockholm) and Tuomas A. ing. Therefore, the exhibition functioned as a and relational capacities we, as beings and as a for both gallery and outdoor activity. The tents Laitinen (Helsinki/Los Angeles), had taken part site for various forms of artistic excavations. species, would need to develop in order to better also provided intimate spaces where visitors in other HIAP residency programmes during The overarching concern present through- respond to the uncertainties and ecological ur- could listen to an audio piece narrated by Rob- the last two years. Based on our shared con- out the exhibition process was the aim of ‘go- gencies we are currently facing. Together, they ert Kocik (of the BodyBuilding Project) or read versations and consequently emerging material ing beyond the binary’, namely the persistent hoped to develop a series of relational practices the numerous books brought into the exhibition and thematic connections between the artists’ Nature-Culture dichotomy. The possibility for to help us to begin building bodies capable of by the Project participants or lent from HIAP’s work, the concept for the exhibition took its final doing this was explored by looking into the in- projecting life beyond our collapsing horizons. Frontiers Reads library. shape between Autumn 2014–Spring 2015. An terconnected circulation processes of materials Through durational embodied exercises From curator’s point of view, surrendering important part of this process was my dialogue within interlinked earth spheres: biospheric, (such as somatic movement sessions), foraging to this kind of openness was something new as with artist/researcher Saara Hannula (Helsin- technospheric, socio-political, economic. The edible plants from Suomenlinna, reading ac- there were only a few relatively stable coordi-

110 Excavations HIAP 111 Frontiers in Retreat HIAP HANNA LJUNHG, Specimen 1, 4 & 5 , 2014. Photo: Salla Lahtinen The finissage of‘ Excavations’, HIAP Gallery Augusta, Aug 28, 2015. Photo: Salla Lahtinen

nates in the space, marked by ‘stones’: Hanna during recent residencies in Finland, Scotland abyss of the internet, Nikolić mines visual and space, the tube construction made out of fab- Ljungh’s three sculptures reminding geological and the Netherlands, was edited by the artist textual references related to this metal, ranging ric (printed with visual mapping of geological samples and Barbara Knezevic’s sundial made into 1,5 hour video saga I really don’t feel them from copper coloured hair to construction ma- data), power chords, plastic, metal, computer out of three natural rocks and their black leath- (2015–). In the video, Giffney’s conversations terials. He recirculates these representations via screen and a self-made data server, Nikolić’s er shadows. Otherwise everything was in con- with young Sámi musicians and representatives his Copperlove website and “contaminates” them mobile mining site occupation centre conduct- stant flux throughout the whole duration of the were especially telling in regards of contempo- with an unexpected vocabulary of love. By ed the way between the first and the second ex- exhibition. rary forms of colonialism and identity politics. collating the metallic final products and their hibition hall. The first impression of the second exhibition In the exhibition, the bronze shoes and the vid- representations, Nikolić brings attention to the Copper was also at the core of Tuomas A. hall of Gallery Augusta was darker and quiet- eo work were shown together, in a way that vis- global desire to mine, extract, and refine raw Laitinen’s new work. The one-channel video er. The three artists showing their works there itors could also try out wearing the shoes – of materials. Casting a critical gaze into extraction Powder of Sympathy (2015), premiered at HIAP, had all been researching into human coexis- which one of the Sámi youths in the video says: industries and future mining initiatives (for in- was a condensation of the artist’s 2,5 years re- tence with metals, namely copper and bronze, stance in Serbia and Finland), Nikolić works to search tracing and filming the often obscured or working through these metals – like Carl “If I would have to wear these shoes, I’d rather expose and alter the ways in which humans and movement of this raw material in the world. Giffney with his Dependence Shoes, 25 kg pair of walk with my hands”. metals interact. For Laitinen, copper operated as a conductor Dutch clogs cast out of bronze. For Excavations, Nikolić’s created the first – both a physical and a philosophical one – a Painstakingly hitchhiking and trekking Looking more directly into the workings of a demonstration of a DIY data centre, ‘a virtual vessel transmitting and transforming material, throughout Finland during his February 2015 specific material in the worldsystem, with the aim copper mine’ to be activated outdoors, at a few energy and ideas: “a tool for thinking through the Frontiers residency in Mustarinda, Hyrynsal- of blowing up the persistent divide between of the numerous planned mining sites of South- structural premises of our environment and how those mi, Giffney used his bronze shoes for activating animate and inanimate matter, Mirko Nikolić’s ern Finland during the artist’s second Frontiers affect our everyday life”. discussions around national and cultural inde- ongoing artistic project we ❤ Copper & Copper in Retreat residency at HIAP in April–May In Powder of Sympathy, a frantic flow of im- pendence, dependence and present-day colo- ❤ us (2015–) explores cultural meanings and 2016. Hanging from the ceiling by colourful ages sourced by the artist from Benin, West Af- nialism. His whole journey until then, realised representations attached to copper. From the straps that were set up across the whole gallery rica; Detroit and San Fransisco, United States;

112 Excavations HIAP 113 Frontiers in Retreat HIAP For Excavations, Knezevic brought a three round, grey rocks, typical to Suomenlinna fortress island. The artist placed each of them lying on a black piece of leather, cut in a way that they seemed like the stones’ shadows. The piece, titled Certain Time of Day (2015), was activated and transformed according to the sunlight that the stones were exposed to during the long summer days. At certain hour, the actual shadows of the rocks met the simulated leathery ones. Time and sunlight were also of essential importance to the activation of Tue Greenfort’s take on sculptural mycology. His work, Pleurotus Mychorriza Ostreatus. On-going Mushroom Cultivation Research. René Descartes, An Essay on Methods, 1899. (2014–), had first been exhibited at HIAP during the Dissolving Frontiers exhibition in the summer 2014. For Excavations, Greenfort decided to attempt to activate the mushroom cultivation that had been dormant for the past year. This time, The vernissage of ‘Excavations’, Jun 12, 2015. Photo: Salla Lahtinen mushrooms again acted as the central agents of the artwork, informing rhizomatic ways of existing and decomposing beyond dualist thinking. The cultivation had been inoculated on a carefully selected Finnish edition of René Des- Beijing and Ordos, China, is set in motion and ry of the earth during which human activities carte’s 1899 methodological essay. In this piece CARL GIFFNEY, I really don’t feel them, installation view. blended with feverish pounding, hissing and left an imprint on the whole biosphere. Despite by Greenfort, the thinking of one of the key Photo: Salla Lahtinen rattling soundscape. Accompanied by Jenna these more austere associations, the sculptures characters of Western dualist philosophy was Sutela’s script, the video narrates and juxtapos- playfully tackle the passage of time on a geohis- literally dissolved by mushrooms. During the es the mythical and chemical characteristics of torical scale and confuse the borders between first year, the cultivation thrived producing a copper. Beginning with its healing properties the natural and human made. few small mushrooms protruding between the humans and other entities inhabiting and op- then progressing to its conductive role in the de- Dealing with time, (unruly) matter, agency pages of the book. This year, however, it seemed erating in this world. Using their unique artistic velopment and continuity of electricity-depen- and circulation in a very different way, -Bar that mold overpowered the mushrooms, and in approaches, all invited artists aimed to question dent modern societies, the work’s occasionally bara Knezevic’s work is concerned with how the course of the summer the book had to be conventional (‘modernised’, ‘Western’) under- disrupted images dissolve into entropy. objects function materially, ontologically and secluded under a glass and placed into direct standings of nature and ecology. The artists On the surface, Hanna Ljungh’s sculptures economically in the world. Her work considers sunlight to dry out. At the time of writing this, were also open for interaction and dialogues resemble pillars of geological cross sections in the peculiar human relationship to the things the microbiological processes are still going on within the experimental and not at all stable their rich layering of colourful minerals. Upon around us typified by the art object. Knezevic – for an undefined period of time. structuring of the exhibition, letting their works closer examination, they consist of synthetic assembles and forms everyday materials into To conclude, Excavations aimed to form sit- to be drawn into conversations and debates ini- materials and organic residues of contempo- temporary sculptural arrangements. Being very uations for the rethinking of subjectivities and tiated by The BodyBuilding Project and am- rary human existence. Completely indebted to simple in their composition, Knezevic seeks the practices within the increasingly precarious plifying the interconnectedness, for instance dead organic matter – utilized in the form of barest most economical intervention into the (ecological, economic, social and political) pa- through a mixtape compiled for the exhibition fossil fuels – we are constantly creating another materials. Thus, the materials, objects, and ar- rameters of the early 21st century. With its by Tuomas A. Laitinen. All this formed a tem- fossil stratum that has our markings on it. May- rangements maintain their capacity of return- side programme, the exhibition process turned porary space for unexpected associations and be Ljungh’s sculptures could be like the future ing again to their unadulterated state – before HIAP Gallery Augusta into a space for explor- encounters among the artworks, the visitors and fossils of the Anthropocene, an era in the histo- they became artworks. ing new possibilities for coexistence between the temporary inhabitants of the space.

114 Excavations HIAP 115 Frontiers in Retreat HIAP During the Mycomorph Laboratory workshops in Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, Zooetics artists, scientists, students, and school children were invited to carry on further experimenta- tions with mycomorphs in a temporary lab infrastructure in the exhibition space. The participants explored hands-on the characteristics of mycelium and its ability “to collaborate” with other materials, such as wood, straw, sugar and flour among others; as well as searching for a Text Tracey Warr form that would be able to grow continuously. After preparing and leaving their own mycomorphs for further growth in the lab, attendees Zooetics is a coinage, a word in progress to ex- tious stories. The visiting speakers were Keller often continued their experiments in their own plore new ways of engaging human knowledge Easterling, Matthew Fuller, Caleb Harper, Na- studios and homes or in the forest. and research with other forms of life and to talie Jeremijenko, Jae Rhim Lee, Timothy Mor- The iteration of Zooetics Pavilion in A Mil- imagine designs, prototypes and interfaces for ton, John Palmesino & Ann-Sofi Rönnskog, lion Lines exhibition in Krakow incorporated future interspecies ecologies. Zooetics encom- Dimitris Papadopoulos, Christian Schwägerl a sound element with the mycomorphs. The passes all life from mammals to molluscs to and Skylar Tibbits. sounds, sourced from various life forms: mag- microbes, and addresses the paradigm shift in Emerging as a consequence of the lectures gots, crickets, stick-insects, seals and pelicans, science, culture and society proposed in the ar- and workshops, artists Nomeda & Gediminas were looped and mixed by sound artist Anta- gument of the Anthropocene. It engages with Urbonas created The Psychotropic House: Zooet- nas Dombrovskij after the interspecies writing shifts in contemporary understandings of na- ics Pavilion of Ballardian Technologies, an artwork workshop Zoo Stories at the Lithuanian Zoo in ture and human/non-human agencies. inspired by J.G. Ballard’s fictional technolo- Kaunas in October, 2015. The mycelium myco- Zooetics is a cross-disciplinary exploration of gies in his collection of short stories, Vermilion morphs here took on a function as amplifiers for future environmental fictions and models and Sands. The Zooetics Pavilion was exhibited in another case of interspecies communication. is part of the Outreach and Education Pro- XII Baltic Triennial at Contemporary Art Cen- Zooetics Pavilion was conceived in partnership gramme of the Frontiers in Retreat project. The tre, Vilnius, Lithuania in 2015 and at Bunkier with Baltic Champs, Lithuania-based edible metastructure of Zooetics was initially inspired Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art, Krakow, mushroom production company. The Myco- by the site specificity of Kaunas University of Poland in 2016. Artifacts on view in the instal- morph Laboratory architecture was realized in Technology in Lithuania (KTU), where the lations were produced as experiments for the collaboration with Paulius Vaitiekūnas, Andri- campus is historically negotiating its borders production of mycomorphs, forms grown from us Pukis, Jautra Bernotaitė, Mykolas Svirskis; with the Lithuanian Zoo and a valley named mycelium mixed with other substances. Myce- visualization - Sayjel Patel; mycelium growing after romantic era poet Adam Mickiewicz. By lium, the fungal network, is the greatest mass technology - Paulius Pilipavičius; project com- colliding these three territories – a poetic ap- of any living organism on the planet. It is the munication - Dionizas Bajarūnas. The educa- proach with scientific and other discipline ap- vegetative part of mushrooms and a life form tional program was organized in collaboration proaches, by using fiction and art as a tool to that can cannibalise other cultures or materials, with CAC educator Audrius Pocius and KTU reach towards the unimaginable, Zooetics offers create hybrids, and make new nets and constel- students group led by Inga Siderevičiūtė. The prototypes for future, radically altered interspe- lations. Its potential as the material of the fu- project was also supported by contributions cies relations. ture has been researched and promoted by my- 1) ‘Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas, Psychotropic House: from Marijus Bakas, Dalius Keršys, Gediminas Zooetics Pavilion of Ballardian Technologies’, Gallery Bunki- The Zooetics discursive programme entailed cologists and ecologists alike, suggesting its use er Sztuki, Krakow, Poland, 2016. Photo: CAC Vilnius Stoškus, Skirmantas Zygmantas, and KTU vol- a series of public keynote lectures in Decem- for sustainable and biodegradable materials or unteer students. ber 2014 and October 2015 held at KTU. The post-disaster spill toxin remediation, for exam- 2) ‘Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas, Zooetics Pavilion’, lectures and workshops, given by leading inter- ples. The Zooetics Pavilion, taking on the concept Gallery Bunkier Sztuki, Krakow, Poland, 2016. Mycelium Zooetics is conceived by artists Nomeda & Gediminas with sound installation: various life forms – maggots, crickets, national writers, artists, designers and research- of Ballard’s living and responsive “psychotropic stick-insects, seals and pelicans recorded and produced by Urbonas, with writer Tracey Warr, and curator and ers, outlined and opened up debate on the An- house”, tests the idea that objects, buildings and sound artist Antanas Dombrovski during the interspecies writ- writer Viktorija Šiaulytė. thropocene, the concept of Nature, interspecies forms, rather than only being produced, can ing workshop ‘Zoo Stories’ at the Lithuanian National Zoo in Zooetics was supported by Lithuania’s Agency for interactions, new materials research, food and also be grown. This experiment aimed to push Kaunas. Photo: CAC Vilnius Science, Innovation and Technology, Ministry of Culture farming research, communities of species, mak- the common understanding about materiality 3) ‘Mycomorph Laboratory’, Contemporary Art Centre, of the Republic of Lithuania and Lithuanian Council er culture, spatial design, contagious and infec- towards a rhizomatic concept using mycelium. Vilnius, Lithuania, 2015. Photo: Nomeda Urbonas for Culture.

116 Zooetics HIAP 117 Frontiers in Retreat HIAP Sylvia Grace Borda: Farm Tableaux Finland

Sylvia Grace Borda is continuing work on the to succeed, it requires collaborators and close development of Farm Tableaux Finland. This is working partnerships. Organizations represent- a continuing and evolving artwork that coming farming, biodiversity, conservation, and ani- prises a series of photographic panoramas and mal rights are offering guidance and time to as- portraits of Finnish farming and food produc- sist in the development of the project. Without tion. The Farm Tableaux series also serves as a such support, the artworks would not be able champion and active agent in facilitating dia- to adequately address the real tensions across logue about agricultural practices, land stew- economies, distribution, conservation, and pro- ardship and its relationship to creating sustain- duction. By slowing down the art-making pro- able food systems and economies. cess and incorporating the input of collabora- SYLVIA GRACE BORDA, Mise en Scene: Farm Tableaux Finland, The artist is producing these visual artworks tors in relation to their industries, the artwork Markus Maulavirta preparing for ice fishing, Salla, 2014-. using Google Street View technologies in col- becomes more real to its audiences. laboration with Google Trusted photographer, Indeed, the visual arts can provide a support- John M. Lynch. The Farm Tableaux series has the ing role as a reflector of social interpretation potential to provide a means of reflection about and ownership and act as signifiers of wider how agriculture is defined within Finland. The public issues impacting farming communities project aims to use the visual arts as a way to today. The artist and partners are becoming portray farmers and food production in situ and aware that such a project as Farm Tableaux Fin- accessible as part of an online medium. land is acting as a communication channel about Importantly, Farm Tableaux Finland opens up regional, national, and global challenges, that it questions about how individuals, communities, is hoped will overall assist in the common goals and regions consider agricultural environments of resilient ecologies, social, and economic sus- as potential catalyst sites that can move us be- tainability. The series was presented in 2015 at yond “what’s being served on the dinner plate”. both the Oulu Art Museum (Jan 23 – Mar 15) Through the commencement of this project and at the Mäntta Summer Arts exhibition (Jun there has been a resurgent interest in farming 13 – Aug 31). and land stewardship through public forums, Farm Tableaux Finland is produced with the art exhibitions, and newspaper reviews that support of HIAP, MTK, MSL, and through have formed around Farm Tableaux. consultations with Ruokatieto, Luomuliitto, While it may be presumptuous to state that Viskaalin Farm, Hannu Lahtela at Maltiolan art can inform social policy or sustainable de- Jaloste Oy, Kinnusen Mylly, Visit Finland, Aki SYLVIA GRACE BORDA, Mise en Scene: Farm Tableaux Finland , Niina Leskelä velopment – Farm Tableaux Finland is supporting Ajolan from the former Eat & Joy’s Market, and tending to Texel sheep at Viskaalin Farm, Muhos, Oulu, 2014-. a visual platform to the participating farmers the Elo Foundation. It also marks the first on- and to the public and, in so doing, raising a re- going art project developed for Google Street newed awareness of food production. View. For a project about contemporary farming

118 Sylvia Grace Borda HIAP 119 Frontiers in Retreat HIAP Carl Giffney: I really don’t feel them

I really don’t feel them, is a feature length docu- pendence’. The shoes are cast. The full moon mentary in HD + stereo made by Carl Giffney retreats. The crowd disperses. across 2014 and 2015 in Finland, Scotland and So that’s how these shoes become so spe- The Netherlands. It spans three residencies at: cial. They come to embody an event of collec- HIAP, Suomenlinna (FI), The Scottish Sculp- tive dependence, as apposed to independence, ture Workshop, Aberdeenshire, (UK) + Mus- through means usually associated with mythol- tarinda, Hyrynsalmi, (FI). These residencies ogy or witchcraft, a theme that runs through the form part of a broader project entitled, Fron- video. The dependence that the bronze shoes CARL GIFFNEY, I really don’t feel them (HD video still), 2015 tiers In Retreat. embody through their sheer physical make up Here Carl Giffney tells us about his time at is also quickly clear. They weigh in at 27 KG, HIAP, his work and its connection to Finland: so are difficult to lift, let alone to wear. They are standing climate change – things to do with from Britain, and in 2017 Finland marks its 100 polished to a golden mirror finish and reflect ev- dependency and big scenarios happening that year anniversary of independence from Russia. The work that was completed at HIAP in 2015, erything. They are cold and slippery and beau- involve so many people. I feel an impeding mo- I say ‘marks’ as Ireland currently tries to figure I really don’t feel them, is the fourth leg of a four tiful. We move to Finland, where we see them tion through the film – one of huge things hap- out how, or if, to celebrate, commemorate or legged project that begins in The Netherlands, being worn by me on a winter journey North pening in front of us – as if we watch. This in- parade. I wonder what parallels can be drawn before moving to Scotland and then to Finland. into the Arctic in search of the Sámi people. I ability to place one’s self within a social capital across Finland and Ireland’s upcoming anniver- The first three legs involved making active re- am hitchhiking, bussing and driving over 850 is at the core, but it’s a positive film too. We see saries? search, shooting video, making props, editing, kilometers. My aim here is to ask these people, young people taking up old and new pursuits. Closer to the micro-system, of course, performing and scripting. At HIAP, the results who I imagine have very specific opinions of in- Musically, it features some Sámi rap, psyche- Suomenlinna is an independence of its own. I of this nine month period (video, sound and dependence, what they think of the shoes that delic house and rune singing. A sense of gen- think this independence affects my work in two stills) were edited and produced to make I really I am wearing. erational shift is strong, one that does continue ways. As it is separate from Helsinki, geograph- don’t feel them. That’s essentially the experiment of the film tradition but only in some parts. ically, the island becomes like one big studio The film is centered around a very special – to make a pair of ‘dependence shoes’, travel Suomenlinna was a place of production for – full of animals, plants and buildings. In this pair of shoes. up Finland in them, and ask the Sámi what they me, and a great one. The island, in particular its context I feel that it is also a home base from The film opens in The Netherlands. That’s think of them. Its central concern is in how we many stone fortifications and cannons, feature which to explore and investigate the city of Hel- where the shoes are from – Holland. They are place ourselves, or lack to place ourselves, with- heavily in the film and many of the wind sound sinki from a remote position. The short boat clogs you see, but not just any clogs. We move in traditional and new social contexts to do with tracks were recorded there too. I spent much trip to and from Suomenlinna island becomes to Scotland, where the shoes are being made. independence. How do things happen around time walking the island and exploring Helsinki a time for thinking and gathering thought for They are made of bronze. They are being us? Things that are much larger than us and by day and by night meeting many people from me – a little like the car drive from my studio to cast at a foundry. There is a full moon rising. we have little connection to. It’s a documentary many different countries and backgrounds, my home in Ireland. As the bronze and molds are being prepared, film that follows a series of performances that talking to many of them about dependency and I hear that in winter, when the sea is a frozen the furnace is lit. At the same time in Scotland all probe those issues within a European frame- the climate. solid, some animals can make it to the island by there is a vote going on about National Inde- work. I returned to HIAP Suomenlinna for a sec- walking out across the ice. pendence from Britain. We see the votes being In many different ways it asks, how does ond residency in 2016 to plan making a new counted and the results collated on live TV. A dependency work in a collective sense? It asks work based wholly in the locale. I think that, I really don’t feel them is available to watch in full, along small crowd watches the results. The bronze is these questions, as questions that are broad, significantly, in 2016 The Republic of Ireland with various other projects and contact details at carlgiff- poured. The vote turns out to be a ‘No to Inde- but are also ones that are essential to under- marks its 100 year anniversary of independence ney.com.

120 Carl Giffney HIAP 121 Frontiers in Retreat HIAP CARL GIFFNEY, I really don’t feel them (HD video still), 2015

122 HIAP 123 HIAP Tuomas A. Laitinen: Conductors and Mediators – Unfolding a Process

This is a story of many exhibitions, journeys troit, San Francisco and Ouidah in Benin. I was and residencies, which led to multiple outcomes gathering material from these places, observing extracted from the same source. In the core the rapid ebb and tide of decay and develop- there is one particular thing, a conductor – both ment on display. The hunter-gatherer type of physical and philosophical – that allowed me to digital scavenging was the practical basis for the explore the precarious material conditions of project. In the end, the footage was morphed in the world. In this case the conductor was cop- a heavy process when I was at HIAP residency per. I traced the movements of this particular in late 2014. During my stay, I was editing a raw material in order to delve into the under- video installation that was compiled from the tow of our existence. In the end this body of cumulated data. work was not about copper as such so I will The results of this work were presented in emphasise the word ‘conductor’ here, meaning my solo exhibition Fundamental Matter at EMMA a vessel that can transmit and transform mate- – Espoo Museum of Modern Art. The main rial, energy and ideas. This conducting element piece of this exhibition was a four channel video appealed to me as a narrator and amplifier for installation Conductor. In this work my intention a rich cluster of themes. It opened up a way was to create a platform to think about circula- to ponder upon the possible social, economi- tions of matter in a global context and show the TUOMAS A. LAITINEN, ‘Fundamental Matter’, EMMA- Espoo Museum of Modern Art, 2014. cal and ecological narratives of near future. It causalities within this process. The installation Photo: Ari Karttunen/EMMA was a tool for thinking through the structural was deliberately sensorial. It utilised half-trans- premises of our environment and how those af- parent scrim screens so that all the images were fect our everyday life. This substance led me to overlapping each other. The audience was in- think about how material interfaces modify my vited to meander around the installation and go thoughts and also steer the way I am ‘acting’ through the structure and become part of the and operating in my environment. work. The border between inside and outside In the beginning though, this project started vanished. as an inquiry of how humans build and destroy Parts of the gathered material were also ex- environments and infrastructures and what sort hibited at my solo exhibition in Helsinki Con- of consequences these actions pose for planet temporary in January 2015 and at a group ex- earth. We have specific culturally and politically hibition Frontiers in Retreat – Excavations at HIAP charged locations here; places like Beijing, De- during the summer of 2015, curated by HIAP’s

124 Tuomas A. Laitinen HIAP 125 Frontiers in Retreat HIAP curator Jenni Nurmenniemi. For this exhibi- from sight; they lurk behind the corner as veiled tion, I produced a single channel version of the circulations of substances and assets or in deep piece Conductor called The Powder of Sympathy. time processes waiting to announce themselves This work took its name from a form of 17th to us (our actions are, of course, a catalyst for century sympathetic healing magic. This ‘med- some of them, e.g. pollution or climate change). icine’ used copper sulphate as one of the main One very concrete example of a circulation ingredients and it was believed that this pow- that came up in my research was a metal recy- der was able to heal through the ether without cling centre in Detroit. The crumbling city has touching the wound. The origin story of this a lot of abandoned houses where metals can be medicine was then juxtaposed with actual qual- illegally excavated and sold to recycling centres. ities of copper, its effects on human body and in Then these companies are transporting their the end, its entanglement to the infrastructures stock to China in containers where the material of modern society. is repurposed for electronic gadgets or maybe One very major new usage for this clus- directed to infrastructure development. At the ter of filmed material was a multidisciplinary same time, Chinese companies have been ac- performative installation Deep Time Séance. This quiring mines for raw material around the Afri- project was realised in Residency Unlimited in can continent, surfacing questions about a new New York and in Kiasma Theatre in Helsinki wave of colonialism. I was also working in an with a diverse group of artists led by curator e-waste village in northern Beijing that was sup- Jenni Nurmenniemi. Deep Time Séance is an posedly dealing with 25% of the city’s electron- ongoing project, a blend of music, video instal- ic recycling. Here we have some hard figures lation and performance where one of the aims from The Atlantic magazine by Adam Mint- was to think about how we could approach var- er, the author of Junkyard Planet, a book that is ious ecological issues in experiential way, e.g. examining junk trade globally: “For example, in exploring the affects related to these complex 2012 China produced 5.6 million tons of copper, of issues. In the video part of Deep Time Séance which 2.75 million tons was made from scrap. Of that Helsinki there were two clear starting points. scrap copper, 70 percent was imported, with most coming First, there is a 3D modeled nose that is leak- from the United States.”( 2 ing various materials from its nostrils. These To conclude, my path that led to the produc- particles resemble combinations of plastic, vi- tion of these pieces involved a radical U-turn ruses and bacteria. Secondly, the materials keep in terms of how my research related to the ac- piling up to become something like the Pacific tual works. Fortunately this happened in a way Ocean garbage vortex, an image of the effects that I was still able to see that preliminary work of human actions affecting the environment. somewhat helpful. In the beginning I was study- This was also a reflection on how our bodies ing aspects of real estate development and built are taking in various toxic substances and how environment and through this information I these materials come out in new forms, creating found the core substance that eventually enact- myriad combinations. ed as a catalyst for the ideas seen in the final Looming in the background of this whole pieces. I wanted to explore how we use these body of work is the concern of how the systems material compounds as our tools to approach that humans have built are altering our habitat and communicate with our surroundings. Sort and slowly consuming resources. The import- of ‘alchemical’ in their formation, they bring ant question is implied here by science fiction forth questions pertinent to our mutual future. writer Ursula K. Le Guin: “To use the world well, to be able to stop wasting it, we need to relearn our being in it”.( 1 The long-term effects are often hidden

2 Adam Minter, How China Profits from Our TUOMAS A. LAITINEN, The Powder of Sympathy, 2015. 1 Ursula K. Le Guin, Late in The Day, Po- Junk, The Atlantic, November 1, 2013, www. Still images from the video. ems 2010–2014, PM Press, 2016. theatlantic.com

126 Tuomas A. Laitinen HIAP 127 Frontiers in Retreat HIAP Mirko Nikolić: unmining for #copperlove

In the spring of 2015, I spent two marvelous and intense months in Suomenlinna working on the first phase of two-year project we ❤ copper & copper ❤ us, residency part of Frontiers in Retreat programme. What follows are ex- tracts of my notes from the residency period, share the ‘fragility of things’ with #tantalum #yttrium #europium #neodymium #lanthanum #terbium compounded by after-residency reflections and intermittent tweets from the twitter account of the project. 2/ in the mangle The state-run Geological Survey of Finland (GTK) assembles and provides open access to 1/ back-ground From these considerations, I delved into re- the information about the country’s geology. search about various facets of ‘mining’ in Fin- One of the main activities of the GTK is map- Metals are the inner skeleton or infrastructure what is at stake is the reconfiguration of nonhumans as land. The country has a long mining history ping and estimation of potential or so-called of our societies and our technologies. We live other than nonmen. All images courtesy of the artist. starting in 1540, and a strong present. As of ‘undiscovered resources’. This data is key for in deeply metallic naturecultures, and even our September 2015, in operation are 23 precious attracting mineral-hunters/explorers and inves- bodies are “walking, talking minerals” (Vladi- underpins ICT can equally be damaging on so- metals (antimony, gold, uranium, silver), 12 tors from over the globe. Together with Kosovo, mir Vernadsky). Hence we are wired, internally cial and environmental levels (e.g., ‘coltan wars’ base metals (cobalt, copper, nickel, zinc), 1 di- Finland is the only other country that has been and externally, with ‘metallic lives’, yet the dy- in Congo, massive spill in Mexico, etc. etc.) amond, and 4 other types of mines. However, geophysically surveilled in its entirety. Counter namics of this intimate dependency is some- The workings of the IT companies share a most of Finland’s mines are cyclical, dependent to these developments hovers the massive envi- times quite opaque, comprehensively black- few traits with mining industry, not only a com- on boom and bust cycle of global commodity ronmental disaster caused by leaks from tailing boxed, offshored, invisibilised... mon mineral base, but certain logics too. Let’s markets. When the price drops below certain ponds of partially state-owned Talvivaara mine Computers and mobile phones are made of think about ‘big data’, or ‘data mining’. Beyond level, the mine becomes unprofitable and is in 2012 and 2013. hundreds of chemical compounds, compris- semiotic correspondence, I would argue that temporarily put on hold, leading to extended On the other side of the mineral-data man- ing dozens of metals and rare earths. In other mining data is a quantitative extension of digging periods of (temporary) lay-off of workers. This gle, the big data boom has landed into the words, each information and communications the earths. Internet users’ activity is turned into has to do mostly with relatively low miner- country in grand style with Google’s SF-ish data technology device is a tiny mine. Millions of resource, extracted, smelted (into datasets), re- als concentrations in the ore. Nevertheless, in centre at Hamina, an old paper mill conversion years of ‘nonlinear history’ of the Earth are sold, molded into corporate services, sold back tune with the larger Scandinavian trend, recent right on the shore of Baltic. Across the sea in compressed into chips that run trades on scale to the same or different users…The ‘big data’ Finnish governments have worked towards en- Luleå, Sweden, Facebook built its own massive of nanoseconds. As we are acting on geological thirst of IT juggernauts replicates and upscales hancing the outlook of mining industry. Despite data centre. Data needs cool air and water, and scale, the atmosphere has not remained intact the craze of gold rush into the digital realm. its not too large reserves, the country has in fact the European North is becoming attractive for either. We are in the middle of anthropogenic There is no discontinuum between data and established itself as one of the world’s most at- these huge data-crunching installations run by global warming, and one of the ways to over- mineral mining; they are part of a unique ex- tractive destinations for mining. This outlook is U.S. Internet stacks. turn this scenario is, as Naomi Klein exclaims, tractivist mindset (HT Brett Bloom’s ‘petro-sub- premised on a permissive and efficient mining Data and minerals shape convergent or di- to “keep stuff in the ground,” and not only the jectivity’) hard-wired into our devices and daily regulation, advanced infrastructure, human re- vergent futurities of Finland, different modes notorious oil and shale gas. Mineral mining that inter-actions. sources, and highly detailed geological datasets. of occupation of land and distributions and

128 mirko nikolic HIAP 129 Frontiers in Retreat HIAP “I think you value consciousness too high and rock too little” mean estimate of undiscovered resources in Hitura (W. #Finland) #cuprite beyond (human) measure #weheartcoppermine (K.S. Robinson via.@mckenziewark) // #copper ≠ mind & via GTK > #nickel 44,000t #copper 18,000t #cobalt 2,100t #copper ≠ matter

divisions of labour. we ❤ copper & copper ❤ us gle character. I got charmed by copper, one of kets. (Maybe this social media buzz pulled me would allow it to be suspended. The internal situates itself into this mesh of data, policies, fi- the longest-standing companion elements of in sub-consciously to focus on this metal and loopholes would be used to hang the server’s nancial interests, and geological strata. Data is humans, the first metal to be mined on a large not any other?!) panels – an open box nested within an open made of minerals, and minerals’ presents and scale. The oldest copper artefacts are dated As we all learned from Edward Snowden, tube. futures are impacted by data. Can we somehow around 5,500 BC, which also represents the Internet is not really cyberspace. Alternative to This DIY open datacentre landed the web- repurpose the data⤩minerals deep yet opaque transition from the Stone Age to Copper Age. the cloud is to host our stuff locally (as back in site locally, all the while remaining fully depen- linkage, make it more transparent and, hopeful- Even today copper is the most popular conduc- the ‘90s). #weheartcoppermine was set up on dent on the World Wide Web. The website is a ly, egalitarian? Extraction logics of big data and tor of power and data. Further, it is one of the an oldish, upcycled PC happily hacked out of live feed of posts from various websites. It basi- minerals are in my view inseparable sides of the metals indispensable for the health of vegetal, its box and turned into an up-and-running web cally consists only of links leading to the origi- same equation that should be publicly discussed animal and human bodies. Its economic/tech- server by Mikko Laajola. As well as bringing nal posts using the feature. On a very from the ground up. nological importance is such that it is often cited the web back home, I was thinking how to re- small scale it replicates the archiving of tweets During my stay I have had the chance to at- as indicator of how well economies are doing. invent the sealed architecture of common data that National Library of Congress and the Brit- tend a couple of symposia about mining at the As a sibling of ‘peak oil’ stands ‘peak copper’. centres. Stranded wires are made of bunches of ish Library have been doing. On the other side, University of Helsinki. These passionate and But, beyond its chemical properties, usages and tiny wires braided or twisted together and coat- as the website is powered by platinum, copper, inspiring academic and activist debates led me applications, how do we humans truly think ed by plastic insulator. Following Jussi Parikka’s silicon, gold, aluminium, and many other non- to realise the complexity of the issue. There is and feel about this shiny element? advice that ‘data needs air’ (i.e., cool breeze), humans, this is also a place where they can po- no yet known way to build a smartphone or ba- why not open the wires thus the servers to the tentially track what we think of them. sically any piece of technology without turning 3/ #weheartcopper works atmosphere? In the Excavations show #weheartcoppertunnel earths upside down. How this is done is what A hybrid of a dog agility tunnel, hoola hoop, was cozily stretched through the arched passage makes a whole lot of a difference. Apart from we ❤ copper & copper ❤ us actualised in two in- nomad yurt and wind tunnel became a #we- of Gallery Augusta. As part of the show, on 17 that, we need to consider the circulation of stuff tertwined developmental processes. In collab- heartcoppertunnel. The skeleton of the tunnel June, together with the BodyBuilding Project, that is already above ground; enormous quan- oration with the awesome Romulus Studio we is a single spiral of PVC cable tube, enwrapped we organised CONVEY: 12 hours of shared prac- tities of metals end up in dumpsites and draw- worked on an online #weheartcoppermine. into a fabric emblazoned with digitally print- tice. The lovely BodyBuilding bunch held a full ers waiting to be recycled. Some of it can be The website would be an aggregator of pub- ed camouflage pattern derived from Finland’s day of open practice sessions, and I performed done first-hand, as I learned at the Fairphone lic conversations about ‘copper’ from across geological maps. Thanks to the amazing tai- #copper #love #maintenance, a sort of ceremonial Urban Mining workshop at Open Source Cir- the social media (twitter, instagram, tumblr). I loring and sewing skills of Siru Juntunen, the launch of the tunnel and a good-bye to the res- cular Economy Day at Suvilahti. There are wouldn’t have thought so, but this spring/sum- messy sketches and prototypes materialised into idency. many tactics and strategies to think against the mer the word (and the metal) was trending in a full-blown piece of soft infrastructure (or su- self-fulfilling one-way ‘Great Acceleration’. fashion, jewelry and interior design, and hair pra-structure). The tunnel was furnished with #weheartcoppermine To make my way through this intricate colour styles. It’s been all over the news as it seven ratchet hooks on both ends, as well as weheartcopperheartus.co mess/h, I chose to follow the traces of one sin- reached 6-year lows on the commodity mar- having internal straps running throughout that

130 mirko nikolic HIAP 131 Frontiers in Retreat HIAP Tracey Warr

Tracey Warr was in residence at HIAP Suomen- Green Planets, 2014) to map out the archetypal linna in January 2015, where she worked on a polarities in science fiction of utopia/dystopia, future fiction novel entitled The Water Age set on city/country: the utopian techno super city ver- an inundated coast 200 years in the future, in sus arcadia – the perfect countryside, or their a globally warmed scenario with significantly flipside, the Bad Big Brother City with super raised sea levels. Relating to the subject of the surveillance and fascist state control (Brave New novel she ran three workshops on aquatic life World, 1984) versus a Rural Dystopia of natural with children at Annantalo Art School in Hel- disasters and diseases. Canavan labels adapted Workshop on aquatic life with children at Annantalo Art School in Helsinki, 2015. Photo: Tracey Warr sinki, in collaboration with art educator Elsa versions of the city somewhere between utopia Hessle. During her residency Warr published and dystopia, Junk City (Philip K. Dick, William a series of blog posts entitled Posts from an Is- Gibson) where humans adapt to urban, techno land on her website traceywarrwriting.com and chaos, and the rural flipside of that is a toxic, gave lectures on the use of future fiction in art, polluted, encroaching nature. And then there is aquatic and amphibian life, she explored body compassed sea steading, floating fishing villages watery future scenarios, and the dynamics be- the final archetype: Quiet Earth, a world with- technologies such as octopus ink, fish spit and and markets, underwater wearables including tween fictional technologies and real technolog- out humans (which is where Clifford D. Simi- mucus, frog poison, the waterproof fur and clos- diving suits from various times, chandlery ob- ical developments to students at independent ak’s City ends up). able nostrils and ears of otters, the waxy water jects, and artists working with water including Art School MAA on Suomenlinna island and at Warr declares herself to be a hydrophil- repellent surfaces of lily pads, ducks’ oil glands Susan Derges and Tuula Närhinen (who also Aalto University. ic, committed to swimming and gongoozling to waterproof their feathers and their webbed takes part in the Frontiers in Retreat project). The research she undertook towards the (which means staring at life as it passes by on feet, salmon leaps, the long, thin legs of wading Warr’s fiction assumes that we will be living novel included study of selected science and fu- water). Like John Cheever’s character in The birds, and underwater sound transmissions by with more water in the future. She argues that ture fiction, especially by women writers such Swimmer or Roger Deakin in Waterlog, if she sees dolphins and whales. although our ability to manage water has been as Ursula Le Guin, Octavia Butler and Doris water she wants to get in it. So she is trying to Water, itself, will be a kind of character in sophisticated for a long time, since Flemish me- Lessing and by writers focusing on the environ- imagine a future relationship with the hydro- her novel. She has been exploring its proper- dieval water engineering for example, there is ment such as J.G. Ballard in The Drowned World sphere that is not dystopic and that draws on ties, reading the ‘water magicians’ of the early also a limit to our ability to control water as or Kim Stanley Robinson’s Three Californias and aquatic flora and fauna for inspiration. There 20th century – Victor Schauberger and Theo- King Canute demonstrated. It would be better Science in the Capital series. are many interspecies hybrids and other species dore Schwenk, who studied the structure, move- to think about cooperating with water. Warr drew on analyses by W.H. Auden, ‘familiars’ in our myths, fairy tales and nurs- ment, and health of water, its motility, eddies Samuel R. Delaney and Gerry Canavan (see ery rhymes. Diving deep into the properties of and vortices, its viscosity. Her research also en-

132 Tracey Warr HIAP 133 Frontiers in Retreat HIAP EVENTS & EXHIBITIONS Interpreting the Frame: Reflecting on Interpreting the Frame Exhibition

HIAP Gallery Augusta, Jan 30 – Feb 22, 2015

Text Dahlia El Broul

Photography has a multiplicity that is feasible in malist ambiance of the space adds to the overall Opening of ‘Interpreting the Frame’, HIAP Gallery Augusta, January 2015. Photo: Tuomas Laasanen a post modernist framework. No longer behold- delicate nature of the show. There are intimate en to the subject, images turn into new artifices corners where one can feel very much alone. or completely shift into symbiotic experiences. Works are strategically placed with long dis- That is what Interpreting the Frame exhibition at tances between them, exaggerating atmospher- The artists’ use of the archive is pleasantly chotomy of what we see as illusionary knowing HIAP’s Gallery Augusta excels at. The show, ic gaps and echoing sounds. surprising. Instead of approaching the collec- and what we hear as truth. The work straddles curated by Boshko Boskovic, succeeds at giv- tion as sanctified and frozen, the artists have the intersection of performance and photogra- ing a depth and breadth to photography that managed to recreate something that is increas- phy as her dry voice narrates over slow-moving is unexpected, situating it outside the medium Dahlia El Broul is an independent cura- ingly mutated, with moments liberated from video clips. The polemic positioning of the ar- of documentation or historicity and giving it tor, educator and artist-illustrator, originally their calcified positions. This narrative is ex- chive is clear in this work when she proclaims, a critical standpoint. The exhibition unites an from New York City, USA. She has curated panded not only through their interpretations “In the next four hundred years almost all of awareness of the changing role of the archive a number of exhibitions at Aalto University’s but also through the perception of the public the buildings in Manhattan will have been taken with the contemporaneity of the artists to cre- NODE Gallery and helped developed Hard – such is the case in Kina’s work. She invited down and replaced by new ones.” What seems ate a reflexive exchange. Rain Goes Aalto, a large-scale project focus- guests to narrate descriptions of photographs to to be scrutinized is the inevitability of more and The space, infused with music, presents the ing on climate change and the anthropocene. others, who would then draw their interpreta- more human manipulation and rejuvenation, audience with an analytical dialogue that is Additionally, she led the educational program- tion as the account unfolded. The final results as archives only last as long as their handlers nonetheless imbued with a certain gentleness ming at the Espoo Museum of Modern Art for are not diluted iconographies but thoughtful support them. and warmth. Artists Zeljka Blaksic, Liinu Grön- the exhibition Ote/Points of View. In New and imaginative realizations. The works oper- The questions I remain exploring, hover lund, Tatiana Istomina, Jonna Kina, Tanja Kol- York, she designed and delivered arts education ate as transmissions, suggesting fragments of around the function and position of the archive. jonen, Juuso Noronkoski and Mikko Rikala use curricula for institutions and schools across what could survive the process of archival re- Do archives remain in flux, are they teetering sculpture, drawing, film, video, and site specific the city such as the Hudson River Museum, telling, and what is left. on the balance of being ignored or renewed? installation to create new works inspired by the the 92nd Street Y and the Brearley School. Awash in darkness, the second gallery space What is the role of these massive collections? photographic archive of the Finnish Museum Furthermore, she continues her work as an defies the pallidity of the previous room. Light In many ways these works play with the archive of Photography as well as collections from Rus- illustrator in the field of children’s literature, emanates from two large projections and a small as a medium to challenge its authenticity and sia and the United States. One sentiment ex- recently publishing works for Rovio Entertain- screen, and close-knit sitting areas heighten the authority. pressed during the opening was how the mini- ment and Intuary Inc. intimacy. Grönlund’s video investigates the di-

136 Interpreting the Frame HIAP 137 HIAP Gallery Augusta HIAP also shot at one – the bullet just bouncing off the armored animal. Although Ameghino asserts Axel Straschnoy: Lista also wrote about it in one of his books, there is no evidence of this in Lista’s published works. Nevertheless, this gave Ameghino reason Neomylodon to honour the animal with the name Neomylodon Listai Ameghino, not only stating it was a my- lodon, originating from the extinct pre-histori- Listai Ameghino cal ground-sloth, but a modern one, and giving the credits of its discovery to the then late Ra- mon Lista (and claiming a bit of the credit for himself). The pamphlet, being speedily translated and published in the respected scientific HIAP Gallery Augusta, May 08–31, 2015 journal Natural Science in London in 1898, made an impact in the scientific world as well as in the popular press. Scientists had very soon started to question the assertions made by Ameghino, first and foremost his colleague and former employer F. P. Moreno. He went as far as implying that Text Pontus Kyander Ameghino might not even have seen any part of the skin, but possibly only examined some of the ossicles, well aware that Ameghino would Axel Straschnoy’s Neomylodon Listai Ameghino is Uppsala together with a large amount of other not be able to show any proof supporting his a research-based art project about science and findings from his very extensive explorations. Photo: Kolme Perunaa theory. Moreno – who certainly had access to a speculation, about the construction of knowl- Two years later, Nordenskjöld’s younger rela- part of the skin and had visited the cave – stated edge and truths – but also a story about person- tive and fellow explorer/scientist Erland Nor- rightly that the skin must indeed be very old, al and professional competition, about the co- denskiöld also visited the cave, making further Important for the development of the al- but launched a theory of his own, indicating lonial culture of exploration, and about deceit, – thoroughly documented – research into the most hysterical interest that took place in those it might have been killed by a human, mean- delusion, and the culture of display. cave. His findings were brought back to Swe- years right before the turn of the century was ing it had existed well into an age when also In 1895, local estate owner Captain Eber- den. Several skin pieces ended up in Berlin, the competition between two local scientists. humans roamed the plains of South America. hard found a large skin in a cave in Southern through the work of the German scientist Ru- On one end was F. P. Moreno, founder of the Another scientist, the previously mentioned Ru- Patagonia, Chile. It did not resemble any then dolph Hauthal, who excavated the cave for the Museo de La Plata, and on the other his former dolph Hauthal, who also was an employee of known animal, being amazingly thick, covered newly founded Museo de La Plata in Argentine employee Florentino Ameghino, later known Dr Moreno and thus had all the reason in the with reddish grey hair, with a layer of round- – which through this work came to hold a large as a founding father of Argentinian paleontol- world to support his superior, launched the the- ish bones (ossicles) embedded into the deeper portion of the bone parts, but less of the sensa- ogy. Moreno had secured a piece of the skin in ory that the animal – now going under several layers of the skin, forming a protective armor tional skin. 1897, with yet another ironic turn of the story, different scientific names, to add to the confu- for a quite large animal. The skin was in itself when leading a group of Argentinian land sur- sion – had been kept by humans in stone walled surprisingly well preserved, as if it had been veyors trying to establish the disputed border corrals. The latter theory was soon refuted, the killed not that long time ago. Eberhard, having Pontus Kyander is a curator and art critic, and between Chile and Argentine. Ameghino, who assumed ‘walls’ consisting only of material from no idea what it was and not seeing much value a former museum director and professor of fine had been fired after a dispute between the two, parts of the cave having collapsed. in it, had it attached to a tree on his grounds. arts. He is currently the co-curator of Gustav managed secretly to examine the skin fragment For a brief period, the scientific explorations There it remained for some years, admired by Metzger’s retrospective Act or Perish (CSW and secure a few ossicles for himself. of the cave, as well as articles on the findings, locals and foreigners alike, some of who cut off Torún, Poland; Kunstnernes Hus & Kuns- Soon a pamphlet of his appeared, making a were numerous. A prize was even promised to and brought home parts of the skin. thall Oslo; MUSAC Léon, Spain) and of rather bold assessment: the well-preserved skin the one who could catch or kill a specimen. Lo- In 1897, the Swedish explorer and geologist the sound and moving image festival EMAP was proof of a living animal in Patagonia, a last cals realized there was a business to be made Otto Nordenskjöld passed by on his expedition 2016: S.O.S. Art for a time of urgencies in member of the mammal assumed long since ex- with items found in the cave, and the place was to Tierra del Fuego. He made some investiga- Seoul, South Korea 24-29 May 2016. He tinct. Ameghino claimed to have heard about it plundered of most its holds and made quite tions of the cave and found two other pieces of has known and worked with Axel Straschnoy from a geographer and traveller Ramon Lista, useless from an archaeological point of view. skin and a few other items that were brought to since 2011. He is currently based in Helsinki. who was supposed to have not only seen, but As no further signs of any live Neomylodons were

138 Axel Straschnoy: Neomylodon Listai Ameghino HIAP 139 HIAP Gallery Augusta HIAP AXEL STRASCHNOY, ‘Neomylodon Listai Ameghino’, HIAP Gallery Augusta, 2015. Photos: Kolme Perunaa

found, the debate faded and died. tine and Chile, the antipodes of this strange For science, the debate proved a dead end. and challenging story about the animal briefly But instead, it forms a richly layered narra- known as the Neomylodon Listai Ameghino. While tive from many other points of views. The re- the work travels, it will only show the materi- mains found of the animal were to a great ex- al locally available. When premiered at HIAP tent brought to Europe by scientists not very Gallery Augusta at Suomenlinna, Finland, a different from the adventurers and exploiters small amount of preserved coprolites (faeces, pillaging the natural and human resources of i.e. poop) from the cave was on display in one the colonized world – Moreno himself gave his of the vitrines dedicated to such material, the piece of skin to the Museum of Natural History only scientific material that reached as far as in London. The narrative twists (in the popular Finland. The other vitrine is exclusively for the press as well as in the scientific journals) proves remains of the skin, and remains empty in sev- how readily the edges of the world were used to eral venues. At the Evolutionsmuseet in Uppsa- project perceptions of the fantastic – just as in la, a far richer display was presented, including the almost simultaneous fiction stories by H.G. more coprolites, a couple of nails, and even Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Jules Verne. some pieces of the skin. But the presentation Thus, it is not only a story about science, but of will continuously be as random and fragment- colonialism as well, and how fiction and fanta- ed as the findings that are spread to museums sy are woven into the assumed factual scientific around the world. The whole image or at least weave. the complete findings can only appear after the Axel Straschnoy’s installation Neomylodon project has toured to all the museums holding Listai Ameghino consists of four custom-built vit- parts of the Neomylodon to a viewer who could rines. Two of the vitrines are for actual findings by some spell of magic be able to perceive them related to the assumed surviving mammal – one all at the same time. is exclusively for parts of the skin, the other for The work consistently points at what is bones and other material. The two remaining not present: the layers of the story that reveal vitrines are for documents created by the popu- themselves indirectly and the documentation lar and scientific debate about theNeomylodon . A that connects the installation to so many other film looping in a projector displays Straschnoy’s narratives. The most important story might be own documentation of the cave in Southern the one about science and truth, how theories Patagonia where the findings were made. and certainties are projected like the figures you The exhibition will travel between muse- might see when watching clouds, only to be dis- ums in the Europe as well as venues in Argen- persed and replaced by others.

140 Axel Straschnoy: Neomylodon Listai Ameghino HIAP 141 HIAP Gallery Augusta HIAP ‘Helsinki Group’ exhibition, HIAP Gallery Augusta, 5. Nov 2015. Photo: Pasi Autio

Gertrude Stein would not pass the Turing Test, if I told her

If I told her that Pablo Picasso was a Neanderthal would she believe me would he believe me?

He said it himself leaving the cave of Lascaux: “We have invented nothing” or that “none of us can paint like this.”

Forget the progress, the idea of progress. Forget Napoleon; forget the leaders, the Central bank of Europe, Forget the Imperial English.

Why go clockwise when we may travel anticlockwise? HELSINKI GROUP One day he woke up – or was it I, finding myself to be a woolly Neanderthal.

What a surprise! HIAP Gallery Augusta, November 27–28, 2015 And then people taught me things No one from us, Neanderthals, did before, not even Picasso.

‘HELSINKI GROUP’ is a collective of works language, and random companies of post-hu- See it for yourself: that may be seen as memories stored outside manist assemblages. the brain, or a group exhibition that explores Dancing karaoke together with my inflatable air mattress and its the idea of an exhibition as a vehicle for social The following passage is excerpted from the remote control in one hand, while googling for a vegetarian lasagne imagination. Imagine it as a hybrid genre of a reading’s script: recipe with another hand, and abusing accelerating substances under travelling show in a suitcase and a cabinet of cu- How to Clone a Mammoth (in Three Voices the constant shower of neutrinos with a full mouth of 3D printed riosities. Also it may be seen as a library of ob- and with a Fisherman‘s Exaggeration) dental implants, for example! jects, a book written in real time, an assemblage, or consisting of choreographed objects, space for The Science of De-Extinction in the Economy Thus let me introduce myself again. potentialities; it may function as a ghostly vehi- of Clicks I am a cloned Neanderthal friend of yours. cle, both figuratively and literary, for an audi- I’m 37, not married, but not single too, a freelancer. ence, artists, art objects, and imaging. Organised by Baltic Notebooks of Anthony Blunt, Vil- Struggling to pay my Health Insurance. A reading based on the writings by the cu- nius and Ruler, Helsinki in co-operation with HIAP. Talking strictly technically I am not exactly a Neanderthal. rator of the exhibition Valentinas Klimašaus- Supported by Lithuanian Council for Culture. kas, was performed during the opening night. With contributions by: The Baltish Notebooks of I am the hybrid of an illegal immigrant, Using the structure of traditional Lithuanian Anthony Blunt, Kaspars Groshevs, Morten Norbye Hal- drifting in an overfull boat in the Mediterranean polyphonic songs, the reading unites fragments, vorsen, Pakui Hardware, Laura Kaminskaitė, Eglė Kul- wrapped in thermal blankets on a seashore, poems, quotes, stories about new friendships (as bokaitė and Dorota Gaweda, Mikko Kuorinki, Jaana the hybrid of heating up times and genes, a metaphor for an old internet), on the impor- Laakkonen, Nicholas Matranga, Kimmo Modig, Elena a living post-species fossil, a hairy robot, tance of becoming Neanderthals, why Gertrude Narbutaitė, Jaakko Pallasvuo, Carl Palm, Dexter Sinis- although don’t call me Artificial Intelligence. Stein would not pass the Turing test, the AI of ter, Ola Vasiljeva and others.

142 HELSINKI GROUP HIAP Gallery Augusta HIAP 143 ‘Helsinki Group’ exhibition, HIAP Gallery Augusta, Nov 2015. Photo: Pasi Autio

Invite a traveller or an immigrant. If it rains outside don’t mention art, at all. Wear masks. Cucumber mask is great. And not just for the opening or drinks. It also takes the stress away, if any.

Exchange your straws, cloths, jokes. Give away half of your belongings, longings, debts, and doubts. Unlearn something. Look at the neon crosses on the church towers. Can you howl like a wolf or Allen Ginsberg in an android voice? The reading at ‘Helsinki Group’, HIAP Gallery Augusta, Nov 2015. Photo: Salla Lahtinen Cultivate a new addiction. For example, invite a neighbour for a cup of tea and keep asking about the future of our solar system. I did not pass the Turing test too. Have you heard the latest news about the Ceres, Which means that for you the so called dwarf planet? I am more a machine than a human. Withdraw from one of your addictions. You may ask yourself what can you learn Better help someone enslaved or looped from your thicker-skulled ancestors into economical, logical, racial, sexual, who were considered not intelligent enough, the species of hominids that went extinct 1,500 generations ago? other conditions of prejudices. Learn a poem but don’t tell it to anyone. Well, while openly oversimplifying Go collect plastic bags on a wild beach instead. I can remind you that it was my people who were the first known artists and who also happened to invent hashtags. Water rain-making-bacteria in a balcony, spill water out to the street, and create So here comes my proposal. conditions for a short lived rainbow. Let’s spend more time together, let’s hang out. Spill it on some passers-by. Have a discussion Forget the Imperial grammar (forget manners). on the issues of ecology or ethics or both.

What is your favourite algae, fungus, Buy some vegetable seeds and plant or yogurt bacteria ice-cream? them anywhere in the city. Slow the city down. Invite a living nonhuman organism to an exhibition, to a museum, and do a guided tour, grow it inside. Make it asleep like a falling bag of cement which did not pulverize while being used for Drip it, make it more humid, cloud seeding in the sky by Russian air-forces less human, honey. Don’t avoid and went through the roof of the house of an old lady geckos and mosquitos; avoid ideas in Moscow, in a manner of devil influenced by biological predetermination. from “The Master and Margarita.”

144 145 Jesse Auersalo: Hold Me in Your Arms (and Never Let Me Go)

Graphic Designer of the Year 2015 Exhibition, HIAP Project Space, Aug 22–30, 2015

Science fiction writer Ursula K. LeGuin was right to note that the first tool in our evolution- ary history was not a weapon, but a carrier bag: “We’ve heard it, we’ve all heard about all the SAMU VIITANEN & JESSE AUERSALO, New Breed, 2015. Photo: Salla Lahtinen sticks and spears and swords, the things to bash and poke and hit with, the long, hard things, but we have not heard about the thing to put things to walk around with. It often ends up lining a salo’s exhibition show, very concretely, how one in, the container for the thing contained.” (The garbage bin. Some shopping bags, like the blue man’s trash can be another man’s treasure. By Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, 1986) IKEA bag, have transcended their original role displaying the bags in different uses – from re- To celebrate his Graphic Designer of the by becoming the main item of interest, primary cycled conversation pieces to objects wrapped Year award, Jesse Auersalo put up an exhibi- to what they hold within.” Furthermore, Au- around a head – the illustrator and artist seeks tion about plastic bags. “The idea comes from ersalo has been observing the ways in which to provoke questions about their afterlife, which my own plastic bag collection, which I’ve ac- things get exhibited or concealed within plastic often exceeds, for good and for worse, whatever cumulated during my travels,” Auersalo ex- bags and how the closing of a bag hints at its use or meaning was originally assigned to them. plains. “The bags serve not only as carriers of contents: “Think of a knot in a bag of garbage Plastic, in Roland Barthes’ words, is the very things but also of meaning, representing differ- versus a seal on a gift bag, for example. The lat- idea of its infinite transformation: “It is less a ent places and events. My favorite bag is from ter can be read as an invitation while the former thing than the trace of a movement.” (Mythol- Chinatown, New York. It’s hard plastic and likens more to a warning.” ogies, 1957) kind of ugly. The text and the base color are Auersalo’s sustained exploration of plastic so close that it’s hard to tell them apart. This bags, starting from still lifes of debris, is based The exhibition included works Auersalo has created to- bag, among many others, has continued its life on an uneasiness with the illusion of a pristine gether with Osma Harvilahti, Helen Korpak, Mikko in my luggage as a means of classification: that’s object world where everything is seen as re- Ryhänen and Samu Viitanen. where the socks go.” placeable after the first sign of wear. “At worst, The exhibition was sponsored by Grafia − Associ- Beyond their esthetics and organizing func- a weakly built thank-you-for-shopping bag ation of Visual Communication Designers in Finland, tion, Auersalo is interested in plastic bags as doesn’t even make it home from the corner deli in co-operation with HIAP. The Graphic Designer of communication devices: “While a luxury shop- in one piece,” he describes. “At the same time, the year by Grafia is awarded annually for merits and ping bag may carry the kind of status value that our plastic refuse is blocking sewers and form- success in the field of graphic design or based on oth- amounts to its reuse as an accessory, a bag from HELEN KORPAK & JESSE AUERSALO, ing giant continents in the oceans.” er actions that improve the quality and appreciation of a local grocery store is the most mundane thing Recreation II, 2015. The silkscreen printed plastic bags in Auer- graphic design.

146 Jesse Auersalo: Hold Me in Your Arms (and Never Let Me Go) HIAP 147 HIAP Project Space HIAP Human Interference Task Force (HITF): Insulation (Mounting Layers)

HIAP Project Space, November 27, 2015

Insulation (Mounting Layers)’ continued Human ing on radioactive waste isolation systems. The Interference Task Force’s ongoing creation of proposals were published in the report Reducing methods to approach what appears as alien the Likelihood of Future Human Activities That Could HITF, ‘Insulation (Mounting Layers)’, HIAP Project Space, November 27, 2015. to human perception (from radiation to vibra- Affect Geological High-Level Waste Repositories.( 1 Act- Photo: Noora Lehtovuori tions). The performative exhibition engaged ing against this historical foundation the proj- with radiating fossils assigned for insulation, ect is constantly pushed into new scenarios to and posited gestures stretching far ahead in seek ways on how to decode semiotics – with Attest by mimicking – Indicating the speed at The material is insulated. time (from navigation to construction). By in- the methodology of projecting from the present which a connection is possible. serting a zoom cutting and observing sideways, into future scenarios. Localize the core and dismantle it. HITF emerges in episodes as continuously HITF’s interference into multiple layers of ma- Slide through sediments. evolving research on the resonance between terial boundaries manifested as a performative Locate material. Insulation entails an interaction between axi- humans and earthly materials. HITF combines exhibition – constructing a context that allows Locate corpse, locate senses, locate movement. oms. The skin and its inside. The core and its movement research, sound, video, sculpture, engagement with materials such as plastiglom- Seek for solid ground. crust: crop the space and scale containment. and text. The performative exhibition Insula- erates and copper. The clothes worn during the Chart the territory to enable a transition. Cushioned camouflage sleeved protection. Tex- tion (Mounting Layers) was HITF’s third episode performance were offered by ensæmble and the Let a zoom initiate movement. ture disappears onto skin, appearance in dis- and a culmination of a month-long residency audio track was remixed by BLAC UHDAY. Consider mass of material to be isolated from guise. at HIAP in Helsinki. As part of the residency, The exhibition was revisited through the ev- human touch. Knots, ingressions binding thoughts: tubes HITF arranged a research trip to Olkiluoto; an er-manipulated documentation posted on the Observe two membranes colliding departing in interlacing enmeshing in symmetry beyond area with two functioning nuclear power plants website of O FLuxo. a feedback-looped rhythm. words. and a third under construction. The trip con- Established between Anna Mikkola and Seek contact while remaining apart. Eliminate the traction and elide its signal. Slide sisted of a visit to an exhibition on nuclear ener- Matilda Tjäder in 2014, HITF departed from sideways through. Like a headless worm en- gy and a visit in their low level waste repository. research on nuclear semiotics, which arose in countering a jellyfish finding affinity at first. The area also includes Onkalo, a future deep the U.S. in 1981 under the group named as 1 Human Interference Task Force, Re- Permeate elastic surface: a vibration, a chill fol- geological repository, which at the time of writ- The Human Interference Task Force and set up ducing the Likelihood of Future Human Activ- lowed by a microscopic head-slide. ing still is under construction. Being a container by the U.S. Department of Energy. The group ities That could Affect Geological High-Level Mount layers. for high-level nuclear waste Onkalo posits prac- aimed to determine whether reasonable means Waste Repositories, , 1984. Land in position. communicate to future human?

148 Human Interference Task Force (HITF): INSULATION (MOUNTING LAYERS) HIAP 149 HIAP Project Space HIAP Tonight: We are together, trapped on an island and becoming fragile

HIAP Gallery Augusta & Project Space, April 2014 – December 2015

Text Michelle Lacombe

Nieves Correa & Abel Loureda at ‘TONIGHT’, HIAP Project Space, September 2015. Photo: Antti Ahonen A year-and-a-half ago, Liina Kuittinen and To- Tonight very concretely puts this into masz Szrama asked me to perform in Tonight. practice by situating the encounter between The invitation letter they sent to me was black. performance art and the public in the experi- It was a nightmare to print legibly, but I liked ence of exhaustion. It is difficult not to read this body in a very real, experiential way. The emo- EXHAUSTED the difficulty. I liked everything about this, actu- as an easy metaphor. Watching performance is tional, the cognitive and the physical – none of ally. Let me explain. always tiring. The discipline demands constant you is spared. And it is in this crumbling state, Before leaving for Finland, I was warned about engagement from its public. You watch every excessively sensitive and uncomfortable, that the darkness. I was told there would not be Good performance art is typically demand- moment pass. Like lying in bed awake all night, your swelling exhaustion is punctuated, ampli- much daylight, or something like that. Indeed, ing in some way. Or at least it should be, be- time operates under a different logic – acutely fied, or relieved by performances. Eight actions it must have gotten to me, because for the du- cause, in the experience of difficulty, posturing evocative and experiential, despite the paradox presented over a period of six hours. Mine, ref- ration of my stay I had insomnia – a heavy and fails. As a result, the ‘live’ occurs and intima- that characterizes it. Always overwhelmingly erenced below in three parts, was the last one. disorienting kind. I slept in stretches no longer cy can be established, which always allows for aroused or overwhelmingly bored. So, sleepless than three hours, usually less. I was confused a more embodied experience of the work for nights are very much like the experience of per- BLINDED and never knew what time it was. From the mo- artist and public alike. The visceral simply com- formance, and, in its form, the event cheekily ment I arrived to the moment I left, I felt lost. municates meaning beyond the reach of the vi- underscores what we all know: by the end, you I came from Canada by plane, sitting next to Luckily, Suomenlinna proved to be a beautiful sual or the intellectual. It connects more deeply. will be exhausted. a drunken man. He was nice and proved to be place to wander back and forth, at all hours, in While performance is not the only discipline in Occurring overnight on the island of reassuring during the flight, particularly near the darkness. which you experience artwork before you see or Suomenlinna, Tonight proposes a demanding the end when my glasses broke. However, he understand it, it is the one in which this spe- context in which to encounter art. To attend – quickly disappeared upon arriving in Frankfurt, POSSESSED cific reordering of the senses dominates. Con- as an audience member or as a participant – is literally minutes after promising to help me find sequently, platforms that support encounters to agree to self-imposed endurance and fatigue. my connecting gate. I slowly pawed my way to While on the island, I was housed in a large between performance art and the public are at An internalized body cycle is broken when night my next plane, holding my glasses against my studio with a second-floor attic apartment. It their most effective when structured around an expands toward extinction instead of erasing face. It was difficult and uncomfortable to see. I was more than comfortable, a romantic place to experiential, embodied, or visceral encounter itself through sleep. And, under this tension arrived in Helsinki already tired, and I lived like drink, read and lie awake in bed. Not long after before a visual or a cerebral one. – tired – we slowly shatter. Fatigue breaks the that for days. arriving, someone told me that the place I was

150 Tonight HIAP 151 HIAP Gallery Augusta & Project Space HIAP Helge Meyer at ‘TONIGHT’, HIAP Project Space, Étienne Boulanger at ‘TONIGHT’, HIAP Project Space, September 2015. Photo: Antti Ahonen September 2015. Photo: Antti Ahonen

posed to bringing the artist to the island. Preg- mains a relevant way to think about viewing nant women and doctors came first, which gen- performance, because the narrative mirrors the erally left little room for anyone else. But now power dynamics inherently contained in the ex- – ten years later – here I was, an artist stranded, perience of live art. While we could turn away at least for the better part of a day, on an island. or walk out, we almost always stay. Whether Logically, to be on Suomenlinna without a gripped by the artistic proposal or resigned to boat is to be trapped. The ferry passes only ev- it, we are trapped. Only a dramatic gesture can ery forty minutes to an hour between 6:00 a.m. provide escape. In parallel, while there are as- and 2:00 a.m. the following morning. However, suredly ways off Suomenlinna for those willing Travis McCoy Fuller at ‘TONIGHT’, HIAP Project Space, April 2015. Photo: Antti Ahonen the daily life of residents normalizes the situ- to make the effort, we collectively play out the ation, and so, even at its worst, the manner in narrative because pleasure and meaning can be staying was haunted. I wasn’t surprised – not out, but maybe also because being too sensitive which you are trapped is no more than an in- found in it. Simultaneously constrained by the because of any real belief in the paranormal, bonds the public with the artist, who is already convenience. Yet, despite the inescapable com- nature of the work and the limits of the land, but because everything I had encountered since always too fragile when the distancing mecha- fort provided by the surrounding community, it becomes evident that you are stranded on an arriving in Finland seemed somewhat haunted. nism of representation is abandoned. Regard- the context proposed by Tonight still somehow island at every performance event. This living space was no exception. A domes- less of why, drained and vulnerable is a place manages to inform your experience of the event ticated fortress stable-turned-studio was a con- where tangible moments can be experienced quite vividly. Being stranded for four hours vincing home for a ghost to inhabit. From that and meaning can be created. So, we consent between the last and first ferries is enough to moment on, I was accompanied in my sleep- to the difficulty proposed by Tonight. However, trigger something, even though the restraint op- lessness. a clear result of the discomfort slowly building erates mostly on a conceptual or a poetic level Two artists, Tomasz Szrama and Liina Kuit- overnight, people leave quickly once they can rather than a real one. This is probably because tinen, brought to life their idea of a perfor- Beyond everything that the act of staying up again escape. the narrative of being stranded on an island is mance art event. Organised in HIAP’s Gallery all night connotes, it is the shared exhaustion The imagined experience of being such a dramatized and evocative one. Linked Augusta and Project Space, the series called itself that is the most striking aspect of Tonight. trapped on an island is part of a familiar North equally to themes of innovative survival and Tonight started at midnight and finishing in Here, artist, audience, organizer, everyone is fa- American pop-cultural index. In TV shows, on unforeseen danger, utopic community (re)build- the early morning hours on various Fridays. tigued. Individually, this produces a very specif- screensavers, and in countless high school logic ing and threatening solitude, it is a rich mine of During the period between April 2014–De- ic state of bodily hyper-sensitivity, an emotion- puzzles, people forced into proximity by sur- references to tap into. Additionally, and perhaps cember 2015, Tonight exhibited 84 perform- al, cognitive and physical fragility that, when rounding water turn inward to confront each more pragmatically, attending Tonight means ers from 19 different countries in 11 events. shared, creates an immediate, though difficult, other, themselves, or their context. In philoso- that you have already resigned yourself to the The series appeared extremely challenging for intimacy. This connectedness is raw and un- phy this narrative also occurs, illustrated most experience of being stuck, since it is an inter- artists, audience and organizers alike. It was comfortable, a state that is perhaps not coinci- ironically when a university art teacher of mine esting and relevant way to encounter perfor- also ephemeral, like the art form it was pre- dentally also somewhat ideal for the encounter used the stranded island community as a met- mance, regardless of the lack of tangible risk. senting. Michelle Lacombe described her im- or creation of performance work. Perhaps it’s aphor to defend the importance of the artist in Though perhaps unoriginal, the met- pression of one of the Tonight events from the because guards are down when people are worn contemporary society. At the time, I was op- aphor of the stranded island community re- prospective of a participating artist.

152 Tonight HIAP 153 HIAP Gallery Augusta & Project Space HIAP Learning Village 2015

HIAP Gallery Augusta & Project Space, Mar 27 – Apr 2, 2015

Oskari Niitamo, a participant

What I learned in ‘Learning Village’ about fa- • There are to be no apprentices or mas- cilitation and hosting learning events: ters in the village • Non-contributing participation (lurk- • Open Space Technology (OST) → ‘no ing) is acceptable and respected planning mindset’ • There are different modes of partici- • ‘Harvesting’ → systemizing knowledge pation e.g. butterfly vs. busy bee collection / production • Inclusion and embracing diversity is nec- • ‘Letting it be’ and not applying structure essary for a flourishing village → enables emergence • The process is often careful, unhurried • Applying beginner’s mind mindset, and veeeeryyyyy slooooow openness and mutual encouraging ‘Learning Village’, Director of HIAP Juha Huuskonen (mid.) participating in the programme. • Take care of basic facilities (important The first Learning Village event in Finland took place All photos: Irmeli Aro for comfortable feeling) e.g. food at HIAP’s premises in Suomenlinna during 27 March • People don’t want training but want to be – 2 April 2015. The event was initiated and hosted by active practitioners members of the international Art of Hosting community. • Clarity is required on the ‘calling ques- Art of Hosting is a nonprofit, self-organised network, tion’ (included in the invitation) which focuses on learning, developing and facilitating • Facilitation is about building an inclusive participatory leadership and different communal process- learning culture (a village) es.

154 Learning Village 2015 HIAP 155 HIAP Gallery Augusta & Project Space HIAP Tokamak: The Idleness Academy: Where Art Sleeps…with One Eye Open

HIAP Suomenlinna Studios, Jul 31 – Aug 7, 2015

Text Olga Jitlina

At the time of writing this statement of purpose of the sixth Tokamak residency, that took place as always on the island of Suomenlinna at HIAP, Helsinki, Finland, the organisers were not quite agreeing on last year’s organizing concept. The Roman Osminkin’s performance at ‘Tokamak’. Photo: Tokamak Somnolent Director of the Academy, Alexander Skidan, wishes to speak of Non-Productivity or Inoperativenes ironically referring to French his goals while lying on top of a stove, which itself. Experiencing constant stress and frustra- philosophy (Bataille, J.-L. Nancy) and the Ital- he also uses as means of transportation when tion, artists turn into nervous workaholics not ian tradition of post-operaism. However, some going to the tzar’s palace. There is also a tra- able to relax and enjoy anything besides their other members of the directorial collective find dition of praise for Idleness from the point of professional interests. this term suspicious – or too heavy and aca- view of economy and social science, (Bertrand In order to rescue Art, Artists and may- demic-sounding and prefer to use the lighter, EMILY NEWMAN AND TOKAMAK IDLENESS TEAM, Russell) as a means to make a break in acceler- be Time itself from the accelerated modes of tinkling words Idleness or Indolence, echoing It’s Time To Kill Time! (Silkscreen on pillowcase), 2015 ating useless growth. There was also the posture production, we have decided to promote and somersaults in a fountain, collective siestas in a of refusal to obey the state imperative of oblig- hopefully practice Idleness as a potential alter- football pitch, sequin explosions, mass exodus atory everyday labor in the Soviet Union and native mode where art can hide and may take to the balcony, picnics in a full metro carriage, – especially in such close proximity to sea cliffs. Eastern block among underground artists and other forms and pace or maybe, freed from aim, glorious skating in a garbage can, looking for a How, she proposes, will we finally know if the intellectuals (Order of Indigent Painters, Joseph merge with life in an avant-garde Indolence. unicorn in an office building and curly clouds! Idleness worked? Brodsky and many others). Of course, vague rococo clouds! To calm her, the Galloping Director, Olga Nowadays when ‘independent’ artists be- Organisers: Emily Newman and Olga Jitlina The Dubious Director from United States, Jitlina (myself) can suggest speculations on the come subjects and actors of the precarious Participants: Pavel Arsenyev, Alexey Bogalepov, Emily Newman is distressed by the idea that we Russian etymology of the word: ‘prazdnost’ in economy, their art is subjugated to multiple si- Francis Brady, Alexei Grinbaum, Sarah Jury, Sasha do not use the time productively. She suggested fact derives from prazdnik, feast (religious), ho- multaneous projects, deadlines, the principles Kazantsev, Marina Mareeva, Vlaislava Milovskaya, that we have our Idleness Academy, but that we ly-day, fiesta, Shabbat – when God himself had of networking, PR and self-promotion to such Roman Osminkin, Jonathan Platt, Anastasiya Ry- make a book documenting the process or do a Saturday day off. Indolence has proved to be an extent that it almost totally formats their art. abova, Sasha Sizova, Alexander Skidan, Aria Spinelli, something else to neutralise the Idleness, the a mysterious, but valid strategy in Russian fairy In this crazy gallop, at some point management Darya Sukhovei, Oxana Timofeeva, Irina Valkova, An- thought of which makes her extremely nervous tales. Ivan the Fool manages to achieve all of or self-management, can even substitute for art astasiya Vepreva

156 Tokamak HIAP 157 HIAP Suomenlinna Studios HIAP The Safe Haven Helsinki? Symposium Text Marita Muukkonen

Ateneum Hall, Helsinki, November 3, 2015 The Safe Haven Helsinki? Symposium was a forum the International Cities of Refuge Network to address the growing importance of Safe Ha- (ICORN), which coordinates the network of vens, that is, residencies for art professionals at Safe Haven Cities and Regions. One of the high risk in Ateneum Hall on November 3rd, keynote speakers of the Symposium was Ashraf 2015. Atraqchi, an art critic and journalist, who has In the context of an increasing number of written about the deliberate destruction and serious conflicts and crises afflicting the world, theft of cultural heritage by ISIS in Mosul, Iraq there are already more than 50 Safe Haven cit- until his life was threatened and he fled in the ies worldwide, 30 of which are located in Nor- wake of a failed murder attempt. Currently dic countries. Helsinki is the first city in Finland Ashraf has a Safe Haven residency in Stock- to join the network. In December 2015, Helsin- holm. The second keynote speaker was the first ki City Council decided to establish a two-year short-term resident in Helsinki, Ramy Essam Safe Haven residency for art professionals, as from Cairo. “The voice of Tahrir Square”, as well as to institute short-term residencies aimed he is known, spoke about the meaning of the at providing a ‘breather’ after an artist suffers ‘breather’-residency, which he took up after serious violations of freedom of expression in being tortured and forbidden to play music for their home country. The funding is guaran- two years in Egypt. The discussion included a teed for the year 2016. Short-term residencies panel with the director of the International Cit- have been curated by Perpetuum Mobile and ies of Refuge Network (ICORN) Helge Lunde, co-organised by Perpetuum Mobile and HIAP co-director of Perpetuum Mobile, Marita – Helsinki International Artist Programme over Muukkonen, journalist Iida Simes from PEN, the past two years in Helsinki with very positive and Helsinki city council member and activist results. (SDP) Thomas Wallgren. The Symposium was organised by Perpe- In Helsinki, next to Ramy Essam, the cur- tuum Mobile and HIAP in coordination with rent short-term residence programme for art practitioners at risk has hosted the photographer Issa Touma from Syria (2014), the curator and researcher Vasyl Cherepanyn from Marita Muukkonen is an internationally Ukraine (2015) and the rap-musician El Haqed active curator based in Helsinki and Berlin. from Morocco (2015). She is the co-founder and co-director of Per- In addition to voicing their support for the petuum Mobile, a curatorial vehicle, which programme, each of these former participants brings together art, practice and enquiry. She has engaged the local community through a has been a Chairperson of HIAP; Curator range of performances, exhibitions and instal- at HIAP; Curator at Frame Contemporary lations. A rare initiative internationally, this pi- Ramy Essam at ‘The Safe Haven Helsinki? Symposium’, November 3, 2015. Photo: Salla Lahtinen Art Finland; Editor at FRAMEWORK – lot programme is being financed by the Nordic The Finnish Art Review (the international Culture Point and the Finnish Ministry of Ed- art magazine); and has held key functions at ucation and Culture. SafeMUSE Norway is a NIFCA – The Nordic Institute for Contempo- collaborator for organising ‘breathers’ for mu- rary Art over several years. sicians at risk.

158 The Safe Haven Helsinki? Symposium HIAP 159 Ateneum Hall HIAP Fine Arts Impasses during Arab Spring

Text Ashraf Atraqchi

In all the revolutionary emergence, social mu- Spring. Arab rebels and the public were able to tations and changes, there are always cultural easily access caricature art through social media and artistic movements that take place along or other digital platforms, while the public con- the social movements and reflect the reality of sidered it as their silenced voice that was now that era, thus becoming a part of the social re- able to reach everyone. Social media, especially bellion. Facebook, played a dual role in deepening the When looking to the cultural and artistic visual dialog, while standing against all kinds of movements in the Arab world during the Arab oppression and violence. Spring uprisings, one notices directly that all the With that said, there was a huge gap between attempts couldn’t reach the level of responsibili- fine arts and other art forms. Fine arts actually ty required for this turning point in society; from failed in both production field, and in keeping productivity to presenting the daily facts and up with the social rebellion. Instead, it became details. In other words, the fine art movement more like a virtual image driven by nostalgia was in a state of intellectual coma during this that evoked top Arab artists, whose influence period. If we compare it to the French revolu- and effectiveness ended long time ago. As Elias tion, for instance, we will see the huge difference Al Khoury said once: “When the revolution started, between the cultural movement that accompa- it seemed like no one was ready, the cultural elite lost nied it and the artistic attempts that occurred twenty years without learning the lesson from when the during Arab Spring. Liberty Leading the people by Soviet Union collapsed and fell apart. The public’s revo- Eugène Delacroix, the painting that became a lution won’t wait for the elite to prepare itself.” Journalist Iida Siimes (PEN) interviews Ashraf Atraqchi (right) at ‘The Safe Haven Helsinki? Symposium’, symbol to all the liberation movements around With a simple observation of the lack of November 3, 2015. Photo: Salla Lahtien the world immediately comes to mind. productivity and the quality of fine arts during In an overview, we can notice that many Arab Spring, we can see just how diffident and musical events for example, were a good repre- poor it was. It didn’t answer people’s questions, sentative of the social movement in one way or nor did it chronicle a historical record or an in- another. We must never forget the attempts that terim resource. On the contrary, the Fine Arts have had a great impact on the revolutionary movement was completely off-key. emergence, like the art of caricature, which acted as the interface against the despotism. Car- Arabic-English translation by Antony Merjan. English toonists played a great role in the deep shakes language editing by Jasmin Islamović. the liberation movement caused during Arab

160 The Safe Haven Helsinki? Symposium HIAP 161 Ateneum Hall HIAP HIAP 2015 Residencies

Australia Hannaleena Hauru, HIAP Residency Greece South Korea Katie Goodwin, Australian Artists Programme Programme for Finnish Artists Georgios Papadopoulos, HIAP Residency Sujin Lim, HIAP Residency Programme Danae Valenza, Australian Artists Programme Saara Hannula, Frontiers in Retreat Programme Ruth Waller, Australian Artists Programme Anniina Ala-Ruona, Frontiers in Retreat Sweden Elizabeth Willing, HIAP Residency Minna Pöllänen, HIAP Residency Programme Iceland Hanna Ljungh, Frontiers in Retreat Programme for Finnish Artists Katrín Ólína Pétursdóttir, Nordic & Baltic Disa Wallander, CUNE Comics in Residence Anne Ferran, Australian Artists Programme Jukka Hautamäki, HIAP Residency Residency Programme Ashraf Mohammed, Nordic Fresh Air Mark Hislop, Australian Artists Programme Programme for Finnish Artists Emma Bexell, ESKUS Collaboration Eveliina Hämäläinen, Academy of Fine Arts Ireland Residency Belgium Studio Space Residency Carl Giffney, Frontiers in Retreat Stefan Stanisic, ESKUS Collaboration Bart Vandeput, Frontiers in Retreat Pasi Mäkelä, Collaboration Residency with Residency Juhyun Choi, CUNE Comics in Residence Zodiak Italy Jana Vasiljević, CUNE Comics in Residence Kirsi Joenpolvi, Osmosis Residency Irene Sorrentino, FILI Translators Residency Ukraine Joonas Sirén, Academy of Fine Arts Studio Paola Anziché, HIAP Residency Programme Vasyl Cherepanyn, Nordic Fresh Air Canada Space Residency Alevtina Kakhidze, Connecting Points Sylvia Grace Borda, Frontiers in Retreat Tommi Vasko, Frontiers in Retreat Morocco United Kingdom Pavitra Wickramasinghe, HIAP Residency Veli Lehtovaara, Collaboration Residency with Mouad Belrhouate (El Haqed), Nordic Fresh Iona Kewney, Collaboration Residency with Programme Zodiak Air Zodiak Jonathan Villeneuve, HIAP Residency Elina Pirinen, Collaboration Residency with Tracey Warr, Frontiers in Retreat Programme Zodiak Netherlands Teresa Dillon, Design Residency Programme Maria Saivosalmi, Collaboration Residency Jasper Bruijns, Residency Collaboration / Heidi Kilpeläinen, HIAP Residency Czech Republic with Zodiak CBK Rotterdam: TENT - HIAP Programme Jaroslav Anděl, Osmosis Residency France Portugal United States Cuba Alexis Rodolphe, SAMA Sound Art Workshop Tiago Cerqueira, Collaboration Residency Renée Green, Residency Fellow Programme at Ulises Reinaldo Urra Hernandez, Residency with Zodiak the Academy of Fine Arts Fellow Programme at the Academy of Fine Germany Jenny Marketou, HIAP Residency Programme Arts Ruairí Donovan, Collaboration Residency with Russia Robert Kocik, Frontiers in Retreat Zodiak Anna Tereshkina, Connecting Points Egypt Jassem Hindi, Collaboration Residency with Ramy Essam, Nordic Fresh Air Zodiak Serbia Cathy Walsh, Collaboration Residency with Mirko Nikolić, Frontiers in Retreat Estonia Zodiak Branislav Dimitrijević, Residency Fellow Karel Koplimets, HIAP Residency Programme Tue Greenfort, Frontiers in Retreat Programme at the Academy of Fine Arts Triin Valvas, CUNE Comics in Residence Iohanna Nicenboim, Design Residency Programme Slovenia Finland Stephanie Steinkopf, HIAP Residency Julija Potrč, FILI Translators Residency Jenna Sutela, HIAP Residency Programme Programme Martti Kalliala, HIAP Residency Programme Matilda Tjäder, HIAP Residency Programme Spain Tuomas A. Laitinen, HIAP Residency Anna Mikkola, HIAP Residency Programme Fernando Garcia-Dory, Frontiers in Retreat Programme

164 HIAP 165 HIAP Residency Curator Workshops, Exchanges Residencies Retreats & Performance

Helsinki-Tbilisi Residency Exchange Angela Jerardi (Netherlands), HICP – Helsinki Frontiers in Retreat - Utö Incubator ina Hoskari, Tuomas Laasanen, Wilma Kusek, Jon Irigoyen (CCA Tbilisi) International Curatorial Programme Ance Ausmane, Bartaku, Quelic Berga, Yvonne Vilma Mutka, Viola Tschendel, Viv McWaters, Nino Sekhniashvili (HIAP Helsinki) Boshko Boskovic (United States), Mobius Billimore, Sylvia Grace Borda, Hugh Cooney, Åsa Lönnqvist Residency Programme Aleksandra Djordjevic, Taru Elfving, Suvi Helsinki-Dublin Residency Exchange Bora Hong (South Korea), ARKO Curator Ermilä, Jaana Eskola, Ulrika Ferm, Johan- Tokamak Hanna Husberg (TBG+S Dublin) Residency Programme na Fredriksson, Fernando Garcia-Dory, Kati Olga Zhitlina, Emily Newman, Nastya Ryabo- Barbara Knezevic (HIAP Helsinki) Ece Pazarbasi (Turkey/Germany), HICP – Gausmann, Carl Giffney, Bruce Gilchrist, va, Pavel Arsenev, Vladislava Milovskaya, Sar- Helsinki International Curatorial Programme Tue Greenfort, Tinna Gudmundsdottir, Lilli ah Jury, Aria Spinelli, Francis Brady, Marina Georgie Meagher (Australia) Haapala, Eeva Haapala, Saara Hannula, Sade Mareeva, Oxana Timofeeva, Jonathan Platt, Marcio Harum (Brasil) Hiidenkari, Hanna Husberg, Juha Huuskonen, Nikita Pirogov, Aleksey Bogolepov, Sasha Sizo- Saša Nabergoj (Slovenia), HICP – Helsinki Radhildur Ingadottir, Laura Järvinen, Yas- va, Olga Zubova, Roman Osminkin, Anastia International Curatorial Programme sin Kahled, Saara-Maria Kariranta, Riikka Vepereva Soohyun Lee (South Korea), ARKO Curator Keränen, Hanna Kovanen, Pauliina Leikas, Pia Residency Programme Lindman, Henrik Lindqvist, Lluis Llobet, Ar- Tino Seghal Group Yameli Mera (Mexico), HICP – Helsinki nau Llobet, Janne Nabb, Mirko Nicolic, Jenni Boglarka Borcsok, Nestor Garcia Diaz, Sand- International Curatorial Programme Nurmenniemi, Niko Nurmi, Martin Öhman, hya Daemgen, Justin Kennedy, Ulrike Bodam- Yasmina Reggad (France/Great Britain), Erik Parr, Joana Patrao, Joanes Simon Perret, mer, Janine Harrington, Elisabeth Kinoshita, HICP – Helsinki International Curatorial Lotta Petronella, Signe Pucena, Triin Puce- Frank Willens, Adalisa Menghini, Lizzie Sells Programme na, Ugis Pucens, Jussi Pyky, Arja Renell, Kati Valentinas Klimašauskas (Lithuania) Roover, Anna Rubio, Raimo Saarinen, Nuno Tonight Performance Art Events Sacramento, Seppo Sällylä, Julia Scheinin, Vik- Mireia Arnella (Spain), Étienne Boulanger Collaboration with Curatorial Program torija Sialyte, Olli Taipale, Saara Tamminen, (Canada), Shannon Cochrane (Canada), Nieves for Research Justin Tate, Maria Teeri, Tracey Warr, Ruitong Correa (Spain), Alice De Visscher (Belgia), Jolijn Nerea Urbieto (Spain), Tainá Azeredo (Bra- Zhao de Wolf (Netherlands), Abel Loureda Fernandez sil), Emily Butler (Great Britain), Kevser Guler (Spain), Bartolomé Ferrando (Spain), Susanne Cinkaya (Turkey), Dorota Michalska (Polan), Learning Village Fjørtoft (Norway), Travis mcCoy Fuller (United Jonathan Lahey Dronsfield (Great Britian), Aime Virkkilä-Accorsi, Aleksis Nokso-Koivisto, States), Linda Inkeroinen (Finland), Jouni Jär- Nico Anklam (Germany), Niekolaas Johannes Amanda Fenton, Anu Lajunen, Beatrice Lu- venpää (Finland), Lovisa Johansson (Sweden), Lekkerkerk (Netherlands), Chang Qu (China) kas, Christine Langinauer, Cristian Costin, Da- Pekka Kainulainen (Finland), Anne-Liis Ko- nae Valenza, Diana Jean Reyes, Elselien Epe- gan (Norway), Tanja Koistila (Finland), Tanja ma, Felix Moser, Heli Vuoksimaa, Irmeli Aro, Koistila (Finland), Aapo Korkeaoja (Finland), Jan-Erik Tarpila, Jani Turku, Jesse Soininen, Beate Linne (Germany), Philip Luddite (Fin- Juha Huuskonen, Jukka Lokka, Kirsi Joenpolvi, land), Antti-Juhani Manninen (Finland), Anna Kristiina Ullgrén, Lena Maria Jacobsson, Maija Matveinen (Finland), Kineret Haya Max (Isra- Kotamäki, Maria Joutsenvirta, Markku Haka- el), Christian Messier (Canada), Helge Meyer la, Martin Röll, Myles Byrne, Nancy Bragard, (Germany), Siiri Nevalainen (Finland), Katja Niilo Remes, Olivier Winghart , Oskari Nii- Paju (Finland), Franzisca Siegrist (Norway), tamo, Pekka Leikas, Petri Lievonen, Rachid Suvi Suvereeni (Finland), Hiroko Tsuchimoto Bouhalloufa, Rainer von Leoprechting, Simo (Japan/Sweden), Panu Tyhtilä (Finland), Erik Routarinne, Simon McGuinness, Stephanie Wijkström (Sweden), Willem Wilhelmus (Neth- Roiko, Tanja Korvenmaa, Thomas Perret, Ti- erlands/Finland)

166 HIAP 167 HIAP HIAP Programme HIAP Board & HIAP Staff Partners & Members 2015 Collaborators Chairperson Director Juha Huuskonen Riitta Heinämaa Curator Aalto University Curating, Managing and Photographic Gallery Hippolyte / Union of Vice Chairperson Jenni Nurmenniemi Mediating Art (CuMMA) Programme Artist Photographers Minna Henriksson, Artist Aalto University Digital Design Laboratory, Saastamoinen Foundation Project & Event Manager ADD SIC Members Eleni Tsitsirikou Academy of Fine Arts / University of the Arts Sinne / Pro Artibus Jan Förster, Director, Kunsthalle Helsinki Helsinki studio das weisse haus Markus Konttinen, Rector, Finnish Academy Residency Programme Manager Academy of Fine Arts Foundation Temple Bar Gallery + Studios Dublin of Fine Arts Stephanie Roiko (from August 2015) AECID Theater Viirus Harri Kuorelahti, Artistic Director, Zodiak - Annantalo Zodiak – Center for New Dance Center for New Dance Head of Finance & Administration ARKO Arts Council Korea Timo Soppela, Director, MUU Artists’ Marja Karttunen (until May 2015) Art School Maa Frontiers in Retreat (2013–2018) Association Australia Council for the Arts Frontiers in Retreat is organised by HIAP – Vesa Vehviläinen, Chairperson, AV-arkki Administrative Coordinator AV-arkki The Distribution Centre for Finnish Helsinki International Artist Programme in Arttu Merimaa, Alkovi Gallery Tiina Salmia (from May 2015) Media Art partnership with the art organisations Mus- Christine Langinauer, Pro Artibus Baltic Circle Festival tarinda (Finland), Scottish Sculpture Workshop Technical Manager British Council – SSW (Scotland), Interdisciplinary Art Group Advisory Members Tomasz Szrama Center of Contemporary Art – Tbilisi SERDE (Latvia), Skaftfell – Center for Visual Irmeli Kokko, Lecturer, University of the Arts Checkpoint Helsinki Art (Iceland), Centre d’Art i Natura de Farrera Helsinki/Academy of Fine Arts Producer / Frontiers in Retreat Curatorial Program for Research (CPR) (Spain), Cultural Front – GRAD (Serbia) and Taru Elfving, Head of Programme, Frame Jaana Eskola Design Museum Jutempus (Lithuania). The project has been Contemporary Art Finland EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art funded with support from the European Com- Communications Officer FILI – Finnish Literature Exchange mission, the Kone Foundation, the Ministry of HIAP Programme Board 2014-2015 Tuomas Laasanen (until March 2015) Finnish Academy of Arts, The University of Education and Culture, and the Alfred Kor- Maria Arusoo, Director, CCA, Tallinn Jasmin Islamović (from April 2015) the Arts Helsinki delin Foundation. Kati T. Kivinen, Curator, Kiasma, Helsinki Finnish Artists’ Studio Foundation Sasha Huber, Artist, Helsinki Project & Residency Coordinators Finnish Bioart Society Nordic Fresh Air (2014-2016) Petri Saarikko, Artist, Helsinki Aulis Harmaala Finnish Comics Society Nordic Fresh Air is co-ordinated by HIAP, Andrei Siclodi, Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen, Henrik Lindqvist Finnish Cultural Institute in New York Perpetuum Mobile (Finland) and Cooperative Innsbruck Stephanie Roiko (until July 2015) Finnish Institute in London Buongiorno (Finland). The network partners Finnish Literature Society are MoKS (Estonia), Art Lab Gnesta (Sweden), HIAP Member Organisations Property Assistant Finnish Museum of Photography Malmö City (Sweden), The Swedish Artists Or- AV-arkki, Kunsthalle Helsinki, KaaSu ry, Cable Arina Lebedeva Frame Contemporary Art Finland ganisation KRO (Sweden), SafeMUSE (Nor- Factory, M.A.D. Tanssimaisterit ry (Loikka Fes- Frankfurt am Main Kulturbunker way), KiN Contemporary Art Centres in Nor- tival), Mehiläispesä ry (Gallery Huuto), MUU Interns Gallery Alkovi way (Norway) and Freemuse (Denmark). The Artists’ Association, Piknik Frequency ry (Pix- Katie Lenanton Gallery Huuto network is funded by Nordic Culture Point and elache Festival), Pro Artibus, The Finnish Mu- Dahlia El Broul Goethe-Institut Finland Ministry of Education and Culture, Finland. seum of Photography and Zodiak Center for Anne-Mari Huttunen Helsinki Design Week HIAP would also like to thank The Govern- New Dance Ulla-Maija Pitkänen Kiasma Theatre ing Body of Suomenlinna and Cable Factory Jaakko Myyri Lighthouse for their collaboration and support. Paul Flanders Matadero Madrid Salla Lahtinen MUU Artists’ Association Frida Stenbäck

168 HIAP 169 HIAP HIAP Funders

Alfred Kordelin Foundation Arts Promotion Centre Finland City of Helsinki Cultural Office Finnish Cultural Foundation Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture European Commission Kone Foundation Nordic Culture Point Swedish Cultural Foundation

170 HIAP 171 HIAP Contributors (text & image) in order of appearance :

Juha Huuskonen, Judit Schuller, Pasi Autio, Salla Lahtinen, Paavo Lehtonen, Paola Anziché, Tuomas Laasanen, Juuso Noronkoski, Residency Unlimited, Jasper Bruijns, Juhyun Choi, Teresa Dillon, Aino Salmi (Archinfo), Tuomo Tammenpää, Academy of Fine Arts, Anne Ferran, Hanna Husberg, Angela Jerardi, Jenni Nurmenniemi, Heidi Kilpeläinen, Barbara Knezevic, Karel Koplimets, Jenny Marketou, Piia Ahonen, Katri Naukkarinen, Katrín Ólína, Sebastian Jansson, Georgios Papadopoulos, The Dogecoin Foundation, Alexis Rodolphe, Jenna Sutela, Danae Valenza, Katie Lenanton, Triin Valvas, Paul Flanders, Jana Vasiljević, Disa Wallander, Ruth Waller, Elizabeth Willing, Jaakko Pallasvuo, Tracey Warr, CAC Vilnius, Nomeda Urbonas, Sylvia Grace Borda, Carl Giffney, Tuomas A. Laitinen, Ari Karttunen (EMMA), Mirko Nikolić, Dahlia El Broul, Pontus Kyander, Kolme Perunaa, Helen Korpak, Jesse Auersalo, Anna Mikkola, Matilda Tjäder, Noora Lehtovuori, Michelle Lacombe, Antti Ahonen, Oskari Niitamo, Irmeli Aho, Olga Jitlina, Tokamak, Marita Muukkonen, Ashraf Atraqchi

All images are courtesy of the artists/photographers. All copyrights remain with the artists/photographers.

Managing editors: Juha Huuskonen & Jenni Nurmenniemi

Graphic design: Salla Lahtinen & Jasmin Islamović Editing & proofreading: Jasmin Islamović

Publisher: HIAP ry, Helsinki hiap.fi

Printed by Printon Printing House, Tallin, 2016 Print run: 800

ISBN 978-952-93-7330-7