Month: May 2001

One of contemporary art’s most characteristic features has been the attempt to take art out of the art institutions and into life and society, so as to create points of contact and networks on a neutral plane, using unconventional forms. With our site-related project we have consciously tried to go in the opposite direction, to bring life/society into a new space for contemporary art in Vaasa.

The Meeting Point Project was divided into two parts. The first started with a series of concrete events, in which invited guests and visitors played an active roll. This part was concentrated and limited in time. The second part was the temporary exhibition in Platform’s gallery space. This was accessible whenever the gallery was open. The results of the work, which arose out of discussions, lectures, documentation, transformations and so on, became physical material in the project room. In the gallery the office landscape met neo-expressionism.

Meeting Point was intended to break the ordinary pattern of one-off visits to exhibitions, and instead to focus on conversation, lectures, actions and more. Here, FinnFemFel had the role of consultant rather than producer, thus acting as a kind of filter. The events organized were informal and simple, and were devoted to exchanges of ideas and to the possibility of producing new or unexpected connections. They took on their own visual shape, so that content and form complement each another. The boundaries between the different areas became fluid.

The character and aims of the events varied; they were about establishing contacts between people who live in the town and those who are visiting with the primary goal to bring together people from various areas of art, knowledge and society.

During the project, Meeting Point used various media – the daily press, radio/TV, the internet and so on – simultaneously, to reinforce the interaction, or to complete the circle between art and life. The movement described above, from outside into the gallery and from there out again, creates new identifications and interfaces for all those who were actively or passively involved in the project.