Skip to content →

Category: Uncategorized

1+1 talk with Britt Kootstra and Mary Cremin

Platform-Vaasa has a pleasure to invite you to the next 1+1 TALK with Mary Cremin and Britt Kootstra, initiated by Sencer Vardarman, a residency artist of Platform.

The talk will take the format of a conversation between the artist and the curator as a means to explore each of their practices through the use of visuals and exploring the parallels and convergences of their areas of research. They will discuss works in progress teasing out the process of making in terms of exhibition making and the production of artworks. The talk will be informal and will encourage more of an open dialogue with the audience.

Comments closed

Vaasa 20X0

The VAASA 20X0 project culminated on September 3rd 2015 with a public walk visiting eight art works specifically produced for Vaasa. The artworks along the way were presented to the public by the artists. The walk started with the first art work in the public library and the second stop was at the market square statue of freedom and the by the neighbouring Tourist info. From there the walk continued to a seaside spot in front of the Vaasa prison and the last stops were in the park next to the Kuntsi museum and at the silos in the Inner harbour. The walk ended with a film screening and discussion at the Platform studio.

 

The works have been conceived by artists visiting the Platform residency program during 2014 and 2015 under the working title VAASA 20X0, with the aim to create possible scenarios, visions of and for a Vaasa in the future. The chosen artists took part in a workshop together with artists involved in Platform and other local actors. In the workshop the artists’ practices and interests were discussed, as well as local issues and circumstances for projects. At a later stage the artists returned to Vaasa to have an individual residency and work on their projects that finally were presented on the walk on the 3rd of September.

For information on each project see below.

Comments closed

Stunder av / …hetkiä / Vasa

project for Vasa by Patrik Qvist, Platform residency january 2015

Each new place we visit bears traces and crumbs of places previously seen; places where we have
already been, where we feel at home.
The familiar superimposes itself onto the new.
We shield ourselves from the unknown and unexpected by relying on images from our archive;
scents, sounds and outlines of environments where we claim a sense of belonging. We look for
correspondences.
And yet for each new place visited, there is an imperfect match of that which is already seen and that which
is beheld for the very first time. This area…or is it a negative space? – let us call it an overlap: This
overlap holds the greatest potential for sensation in the most literal meaning of the word. The
familiar suddenly calls out for re-evaluation. That which appears new stirs up feelings of
remembrance and recall; uncertain whose. (Is it me or something I read?)

On-site installation, Handelsesplanaden ,Vasa Jan 23rd 2015

The aim of this project is to create a series of interventions in the urban landscape. Short texts
placed on buildings in public spaces with suggestions in two languages- Finnish and Swedish. (With
a possible future addition of English)
Moments of happiness. Moments of burning desire. Moments of indecision. Moments of dire need.
While each text is particular to a specific site / building, it should be noted that the selection is
purely subjective. In terms of urban planning- to ”add value” to a certain neighborhood is usually
done by improvements of infrastructure, housing or commercial interests. These are effective (albeit
usually costly and more often than not disruptive) instruments geared towards what has become a
mantra of an inevitable need for socioeconomic growth. This project seeks to investigate a light
handed way to reinvest in the existing spirit of a place by poetic suggestion.

On-site installation, Kyrkoesplanaden, Vasa, Jan 25th 2015

 

Comments closed

Invitation to participate in Terry Riley’s In C

 

Platform is planning to have a performance of Terry Riley’s 1964 classic minimalistic music piece In C in Vaasa on Sunday, March 8th. We would like to invite you to join us in the performance, mostly because it’s such a fun to play in a big group of players and also because Riley himself says that the ideal (though not the only possible) amount of players for In C is somewhere around 35 musicians. More than that is no problem as long as we don’t have to rent an ice hockey arena for the performance.

The piece consists of 53 small melodic patterns, all played in sequence from 1 to 53 as many times as the player wants and whenever he or she wants. Nearly all the patterns are fairly easy, so you don’t need super virtuoso skills to play this music. What you need is the ability to listen everybody around you, some sense of rhythm and decent understanding of how this kind of music develops and works. Of course a very big help is to be able to read music. To In C you can bring whichever instrument you feel comfortable with, electric or acoustic. One guy plans to play the whole thing on his hurdy-gurdy! The performance in March in Vaasa will be at Kuula Institute’s hall, so 1-3 players can just come there and play the grand piano of the venue.

The score and the instructions you find here:

http://www.flagmusic.com/content/clips/inc.pdf

And here’s one version of the piece played by a Danish contemporary music group. You can find plenty of others (better or worse) in Youtube, Spotify and Naxos library:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbBkdYCViLs

But it’s said that ”the best performance of In C is the one your local new-music ensemble will give sooner or later.” That ensemble being us this time!

We will have at least one rehearsal for those unsure of their skills and/or for those who just want to play through the passages early enough. Maybe play the whole piece through lightly, too. A little bit like getting the brains adjusted. That would be in February, well before the spring holiday season. Other February rehearsals are optional. On the performance week we should have a rehearsal in Vaasa at least on Friday the 6th for all possible players and on Saturday the 7th at the day time for everybody involved.

This is the only performance now, but next autumn (September most likely) there’s a chance to have a retake on In C with the dancers of Liisa Pentti Dance Company.

So let us know by sending an email to aanilaani@gmail.com if you or someone you know became interested to participate and join the Platform New Music Forces for this concert. See you all soon, here and there, on soil and in C!

 

Comments closed

Residency Program

 

Dear artists of the universe, it’s now possible to apply for a Platform residency. The deadline is 6th of February 2015. Read more here.

Comments closed

In Between the Legs of Strangeness

 

Platform Live 27.12.2014, 18.00
Mira-talo/huset/house, Kirkkopuistikko/Kyrkoesplanaden 34

Platform will host 5 artists from Stockholm’s Fylkingen, a long-standing venue and artists’s society focusing on experimental work in music, performance, video, film, dance, sound-text composition and intermedia. On Saturday 27th Marie Gavois, Hiroko Tsuchimoto, Sören Runolf, Irina Anufrieva and Per Åhlund will perform at Mira-house in Vaasa. The event starts at 18.00 and goes on as long as necessary. Join us and enjoy some first-class performances and sound pieces!

www.facebook.com/events/726141280827481

Free entrance!


 

Marie Gavois

Marie Gavois is a stage- and visual artist living and working in Stockholm, Sweden. She formulates her work in the fields and material of body, stage, dance, sculpture text and sound.

Staging action, with a visual language speaking in both big and small letters , the word as material became important as a starting point in her work in telling stories.

Marie is part of different artist collectives and initiatives where the artists organize and support independent productions and festivals, programming radical performance- and stage art as well as new music. To have a focus on the concrete local scene and space and an integrated dialogue with its surrounding is an important part of her way of getting on with the art.

Marie does collaborations as well, as a curator for performance art programs in collaboration with the artist Cecilia Germain, the two artists are organizing in Stockholm mainly. Gavois/Germain has written texts as a duo. Marie works with the composer Alexandra Nilsson in a project where the two artists research the voice as an instrument for abstraction, the voice as raw material, power construction and artistic tool together.

The third ongoing collaboration is with the filmmaker Michel Klöfkorn from Frankfurt in Germany, where Maries performative body is presented in moving image.

www.mariegavois.wordpress.com

 


 

Hiroko Tsuchimoto

Hiroko Tsuchimoto is a visual/performance artist, living in Sweden since 2008. She began her career at Musashino Art University in Tokyo and went on to study at Konstfack and Kungl.Konsthögskolan (Royal Institute of Arts) in Stockholm.

Since moving to Europe, she has worked with ethnography as a subject matter. In her art she shifts between grand narratives and every day stories, highlighting the cultural construction of personal identity. She tells stories about otherness and the will to belong, based on her experiences as an Asian immigrant. This position gives her a bird’s eye view on both the Swedish – and Japanese society. Through her works she makes gaps in our normality, for self-reflection and external observations. Recent works focus on subject matter such as borders, myths and cultural mapping – exploring Swedish & Japanese folklore, set in a present day context. She often includes a feminist perspective, problematizing traditional gender roles and Japanese politics. Her goal is to make art that is easy on both critical eyes, and the disinterested gaze – creating an aesthetic experience, with a deeper meaning underneath.

www.hirokotsuchimoto.info

 


 

Sören Runolf

Sören Runolf has been a member of free improvising group Lokomotiv Konkret (with Tommy Björk, Dror Feiler) for decades as well as Too Much Too Soon Orchestra, Smullotron and Cloudchamber. He has played regularly alongside Mats Lindström, Lise-Lotte Norelius, Johannes Bergmark and many others and is a member of Fire! Orchestra.

He is generally known for his innovative use of conventional instruments, such as the cello and the electric guitar but also uses synth, sampler, contact mics and analog & digital sound processors. He has made music for intermedia projects and dance, and has also been involved in innumerable Swedish and international improvised music constellations and experimental music groups.

Video clip of Lokomotiv Konkret:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCmAhDyk4nk

 


 

Irina Anufrieva

Irina Anufrieva is a dancer, choreographer and performance artist with background in classical ballet and Japanese butoh dance. Educated at SU-EN Butoh Company in Sweden and InZhest Theatre in Belarus. In her work Irina researches physical manifestations in nature and human body, the interaction of all living things with each other, as well as the interaction of the material and immaterial, physical and mental.

Video documentation of solo dance performance VOID presented at The First Forum of Dance and Physical Theatres PlaStforma-Minsk-2013, Belarus.
vimeo.com/88012494

Video documentation of dance performance Albus (2012) presented at Moderna museet, Sweden, 2012.
In collaboration with Joanna Bodzek (visual idea, costume and make up) and Per Åhlund (music: live electronics).
vimeo.com/45688034

 


 

Per Åhlund

Per Åhlund resides in Stockholm, Sweden where he’s involved in several experimental music-, improvisation- and sound art-projects. His live soundscapes blur the boundaries between noise and music, stillness and hysteria, darkness and light. He create compositions on the verge of dissolving and focuses on mood and texture rather than tonality and rhythm.

He performs live on a regular basis and has the last few years toured with acts like Amber Asylum, ?Alos, b°tong and Origami Galaktika amongst others. He has released several full length albums containing abstract, dark soundscapes with such projects as Diskrepant, Skare and Den Arkaiska Rösten. He has also made music for experimental film and dance.

Live he use contact microphones, gadgets, voice, loops and effects to form abstract sound environments created in the moment. At Mirahuset he will perform a piece together with Irina Anufrieva.

www.perahlund.se

Comments closed

Upcoming 26.10.2014

 

Almost a year ago, Platform’s artist in residence Daniel Ladnar launched the project “Upcoming”, engaging with the land rise in the Kvarken archipelago and with the constant changes that the planet is going through. It asks people to consider their relation to the future: What would the people of Vaasa like to preserve for the future? Are there any messages they would like to leave for future generations? What are their hopes, their fears, their secrets, their ambitions?

A letter box was installed for people to leave messages for the future. Now, these letters will be put into time capsules which will be sunk in the Kvarken archipelago.  And because every year the land rises by almost 1cm there, they might re-appear sometime in the future. Or they might never be found.

Hundreds of letters have been sent. On Sunday, October 26th 2014, there is a final chance to submit a letter (A6 envelope). Unopened, all letters will then be sealed in time capsules and sent on their journey into the future. You are welcome to join us in bidding them farewell!

Terranova Kvarken Nature Centre, Museokatu 3, 2 pm.

 

Comments closed

Climate Change Concern Studio

interactive project by Patrik Qvist

with Tuomo Väänänen, Janika Herlevi, Michel Ruths, Dragos Alexandrescu and Clara Diesen

climate change scenario texts by Dougald Hine

produced by Platform

Climate Change Concern Studio is an interactive art project. The installation is set up like an old- fashioned portrait studio with a landscape backdrop and a couple of lamps for illumination. The participant is asked to consider five different statements about climate change and pick one that he/ she can relate to. Depending on which one is chosen, the participant gets to pick a cardboard sign which reflects this statement. The participant is then photographed against the backdrop and two copies of the image are printed- one for the participant to keep, and one to pin up on the studio wall. The average time needed for the whole process is about five minutes.

Climate Change Concern Studio was first shown in February 2014 at the independent art fair Supermarket in Stockholm. There were more than 500 participating visitors during the three days of the fair, resulting in some 300 portraits on the wall. The participatory element of the installation proved to be an efficient and successful way to engage the audience in a dialogue about a serious topic, while retaining a sense of enjoyment in the process.

For more info, see www.patrikqvist.com.

Comments closed

HR-Stamenov, Vaasa-Umeå < > Wormhole Connection

The opening of a Wormhole, provoked the appearance of a transport ‘shortcut’ in space-time.
This phenomenon allowed the train to travel between the two cities for only few seconds.

crew:

Marcus Lerviks – Technical assistance, Vaasa
Harri Niskanen – Location coordinator, Vaasa
Jimmy Pulli – Camera and technical assistance, Vaasa
Joakim Vesterlund – Location manager and technical assistance, Umeå
*
Platform, Vaasa, Finland
Mira House, Vaasa, Finland
Kulturförening Kretsen, Umeå, Sweden
In cooperation with; Norrporten, Umeå, Sweden

© HR-Stamenov

2014

Comments closed

Vaasa-Umeå Wormhole Connection

 

On March 12, a strange phenomenon will connect two cities located on the two opposite sides of the Gulf of Bothnia in the Baltic Sea: Vaasa in Finland and Umeå in Sweden.

A transport corridor, provoked by the opening of a Wormhole, also known as an Einstein–Rosen bridge, which is a hypothetical topological feature of space-time, will create a ‘shortcut’ between the two cities. The phenomenon will allow a Train to appear inside a building in Vaasa, then 3 minutes later in Umeå, then back in Vaasa after 3 min. and after 3 min. again in Umeå…

The observers of the phenomenon will receive a clear evidence for the existence of the Wormhole, and the practical equations from the Theory of General Relativity will be evaluated as possible solutions for transport.

HR-Stamenov, the current artist in residence of Platform, presents this light spectacle.

The immediate attention, which the media installation provokes, leaves the passers-by uncertain of what they have just seen, for the train literally ‘appears’ inside the buildings. The project is an illustration of the scientific theories of time travels and space distortions.

Date: 12.03.2014
Time: Vaasa 19.00–22.00, Umeå 18.00–21.00
Address: Miratalo / Mirahuset, Kirkkopuistikko 34Kyrkoesplanaden 34, Vaasa
Address: Storgatan 38, Umeå

—————

The project is realized with the kind collaboration of:

PLATFORM, Vaasa www.platform.fi
MIRA House, Vaasa  www.mirahouse.fi
Kulturförening Kretsen, Umeå kretsen.org
Norrporten, Umeå  www.norrporten.se

Comments closed