Artspace and residency
Irma Optimisti
Irma Optimist has for a number of years been a prominent figure in Finnish performance. She has adopted Optimist as a last name to counterbalance the Finnish melancholy. She has presented over 160 performances since 1989 in Finland, USA, Japan, Canada, Germany, Austria, Poland, France, Lithuania, Estonia, Belarus, Romania, Denmark, Sweden, Slovakia, Hungary, Israel, United Kingdom and Ireland.
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„Migration always means a change, a change of place, the change of the known surrounding into something new and unknown.So when I come to a new environment and walk in it, move in it, don ́t I walk with every step into the unknown? Don’t I enter it and make it in a certain way to mine? Conquer it. With every step in this unknown place I migrate to a new location. Don ́t I make it just with my presence somehow to mine? Don’t I leave in every location a trace and every place one in me? And if I walked an entire site, went through every road, didn’t I make it to my place?“
Comments closedMope16 is an international performance festival now organized for the fourth time by Platform rf., previously the festival has been held in 2002, 2005 and 2008. Originally named “Movement to performance” soon changed in to the short version of the title Mope. In the beginning the aim was simply to gather all so called performances from Vasa and elsewhere which were not directly related to “Art”, e.g. Wasa Tattoo shop did a hook-hanging performance with the tunes of Bon-Jovi in the background. Alongside with professional performance artists it made a new and strange combination! This uncanny mixture of different performances might be a reason that all three festivals have been successful in terms of audience and reception.
When an artist works with other people in co-creation of a public outcome, what kind of challenges and possibilities does participatory methodologies and documentary photography offer? Is it possible to find a new context in the tension between the two modes of process and outcome, when photographic subjects also become participants and co-creators of artistic work? How does the creative process influence the photographic activity and vice versa? How can one use the social and practical situations that arise as a result of an engaging strategy, to invent art and to explore the social interaction behind an image?
How may one create a space for aesthetics decisions and an artistic point of view while decentralizing authorship? Who is allowed to make a visual representation in a public space? [1] How can one be usefully engaged with individuals or a community and document it in the work? What kind of subtle, silent and in-built behaviour patterns do photographers use? What do we know about all the decisions a photographer constantly makes and how does one move as a photographer?
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The expression of the enlarged sculptures stands in stark contrast to the hegemony of functional bodies of architecture. The giants of power, politicians and corporations, decide upon urban planning – hopefully in coincidence with the general public opinion. Sculptural Pavilion on the other hand is shaped by a benevolent child giant. It is a symbol of young people’s expression translated to a bigger scale. The video in Sculptural Pavilion is a visualisation of a ritual of transporting and placing the sculptures in the public realm, produced in separate workshops with the children.
Comments closedVaasa with its two jazz clubs has a decent selection of music for the enthusiasts of the genre, although free jazz is unfortunately seldom heard in our town. Platform rf. is mending the lack by inviting one of Britain’s most remarkable saxophonists to Vaasa.
The Platform Live-events have contained a vast array of experimental performative art during the past years, on later days the events have focused on different performances. On Saturday 14.5. Platform live is held in the café of the Ritz-theatre in Vaasa, on stage we will experience two different approaches to experimental music. During the Night we will hear an electronic solo gig from Vaasa’s own Vesa-Matti Kivioja and the British-Finn free jazz duo with saxophonist Alan Wilkinson and percussionist Janne Tuomi.
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As an early start to the upcoming Vastaan+Otto / Mot+Tagning festival, with its main events in May 2016, Local A. (Jenny Berntsson & Felice Hapetzeder, SE) are giving a workshop in Ristikka Youth House in Ristinummi, Vaasa. More info about Vastaan+Otto, the The 1st Triennial of Coummunity Arts, can be found here.
The workshop(s) are part of the Local A. project Sculptural Pavilion. More information about Local A. can be found on their web site.
UPDATE: The workshops in Ristikka spontaneously expanded into the Variska school in Ristinummi. Read more on the school blog!
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JANKS ARCHIVE (a project by NYC-based artists Ben Kinsley, Jessica Langley, and Jerstin Crosby) is an ongoing investigation and collection of insult humor from around the world. Since 2012 they have taken this project to cities such as Philadelphia, Mexico City, Berlin, Belfast, Riga, and Kaunas. In each place they visit, they talk to residents and learn about local versions of these types of insulting jokes. They record people telling their jokes, which are put into a worldwide video archive, as well as represented in art installations, publications, and screenings.
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A performance event organised by Hiroko Tsuchimoto. Food & mingle afterwards!
Thursday, 29 October at 7-9 pm.
at Technobothnia, Bomullgränd 3 / Puuvillakuja 3, Vaasa
No admission fee
(Better life and better future)
