URB10 – Urban festival, Helsinki
URB10 festival – urban art exhibition and happenings
in co-operation with Galleria Huuto and Kiasma-theater
4.8.-22.8.2010 Galleria Huuto Uudenmaankatu
Leandro Lima and Gisela Motta (BR), Sari Palosaari, Länsiväylä group.
Opening 3.8. 2010 from 6 pm to 8 pm Uudenmaankatu 35. Welcome!
2.8.-22.8.2010 Stoa Gallery (Turunlinnantie 1, Helsinki Itäkeskus)
Refugee Air : JP Kaljonen, Johanna Raekallio, Sanna Sarva, Kokeellisen Elektroniikan Seura, Maria Kausalainen, Suvi Nurmi, Ida Koitila and Ilmari Helin.
Opening 4.8. 2010 at 6 p.m., Welcome!
30.7.-22.8. 2010 Kiasma (Kiasma’s lobby)
Anni Laakso: 24h Camping.
Common City workshop 3.8., 4.8. and 5.8.2010 at 12pm – 16 pm.
30.7. Dubrovnik ( Eerikinkatu 11)
Jokaklubi Off art talent Show, Mirka Raito, Tellervo Kalleinen, Niina Lehtonen-Braun and Mimosa Pale.
Länsiväylä group will realize a new work named Cycle Lane. Cycle Lane invites people to participate.
Cycle Lane 2.8.2010, Start is from Vaasanaukio (metro Sörnäinen) at 01.30 a.m.
Contact:
Essi Ojanperä (Producer)
project (at) galleriahuuto.net
+358405741854
For the whole festival program, see: www.urb.fi.
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LEANDRO LIMA & GISELA MOTTA (BR)
Brazilian artists Lima & Motta will present two videos created during their Helsinki residency at HIAP. The works are based on a simple gesture of introducing an alien element to a city landscape, which explores the relationship between familiar and foreign, and establishes an indirect connection between two cities.
In the piece Hole (2007) contrasting images from small commercial, no-brand stores were captured in Sao Paulo and have been applied to the facades of Helsinki, so as to question our perception through the different urban environments produced by these two cultures. For the video Framed (2007), pedestrian were recorded passing by and reacting to ordinary people in the “against the wall” position, a scene so common in police arrests in some cities and so different to Helsinki urban space.
SARI PALOSAARI (FIN)
Sari Palosaari’s work revolves around transitory aspects of society and culture. Palosaari investigates modifications happening in the living environment and the values reflecting from the built surroundings. Palosaari has constructed a modular structured installation, a part of artist’s on-going project titled Modular Mash-up. Within the frame of the Modular Mash-up -project Palosaari produces modules assembled out of mass-produced furnishing components. To enable the creation of spatial construction the modules have supermagnet attachments for fastening a unit to another. The materials of the modules are Ikea’s Lack tables and standard laminate-faced chipboard-shelving units that are collected from apartments under construction (the wardrobe and kitchen units to be removed). The construction method of these furnishing modules is utilized to assemble new units that form the installation. Color foil toned LED lights are attached within the construction to illuminate the installation.
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LÄNSIVÄYLÄ
Länsiväylä is a Helsinki-based open group of artists that utilises the city as its artistic material. The group was founded in 2007 by artists Sami Lukkarinen and Kalle Turakka Purhonen, researcher Roope Mokka and a multiactivist Kirmo Kivelä as they realised their first artwork named Länsiväylä in Ruoholahti.
Video documentaries from Länsiväylä acts 2007, 2008 and 2099 are exhibited at Huuto gallery. The work is based on their acting as window-cleaners during the morning rush-hour in a traffic crossing in Helsinki. The somewhat scruffy artists clean the windshields of the cars and beg money for their service. These actions have been repeated three times and the artists describe the work as a way to enjoy and empower their presence in urban space. It is a functional alternative to the consuming or observing of it.
In connection with the URB festival the Länsiväylä group will realize a new work named Cycle Lane. According their statement the work combines communal art, environmental art, painting, cycling and activism. Cycle Lane invites people to participate.
Cycle Lane 2.8.2010, Start is from Vaasanaukio (metro Sörnäinen) at 01.30 a.m.
“We, the people of Helsinki, declare freedom, the pursuit of happiness and cycling as given and undisputable rights” –Länsiväylä
Cycle Lane video screening:
at Galleria Huuto Uudenmaankatu 21.8. from 6 pm to 8 pm
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REFUGEE AIR
JP KALJONEN, JOHANNA RAEKALLIO, SANNA SARVA, KOKEELLISEN ELEKTRONIIKAN SEURA, MARIA KAUSALAINEN, SUVI NURMI, IDA KOTILA, ILMARI HELIN.
Refugee Air is a community art project taking place in Kyläsaari refugee reception center in Helsinki from March to July 2010. Kyläsaari refugee center houses 200-300 asylum seekers. Its mission is to provide basic services for the duration of the asylum procedure. In practice, this means the fullfillment of the very basic needs only. For example, there are no communal or cultural activities. The institutional atmosphere is inhibitive and many residents do not leave the center except for grocery shopping. Unstimulative environment secluded from society does not support the individuals, but rather widens the gap between the asulym seekers and their potential new homeland.
Refugee Air project brings together artists interested in societal questions and community arts. They carry out projects and workshops with the residents of the center. The aim is to provide opportunities to use creativity in the processing of experiences, to meet new people in the projects and workhops, and to transmit personal thoughts to larger audiences in Finland. The exhibition consists of works made in the workshops as well as project concepts by the artists. In Finland, prejudices and notions about refugees and asylum seekers are usually created by news materials from crisis areas and political immigration discourse. One aim of the exhibition is to diversify this image and also to bring humane aspects to public debate. Nearly ten artists and one philosopher are taking part, each hosting one individual project or workshop.
Book for Arrivals by Johanna Raekallio collects tacit knowledge from asylum seekers, for the benefit of newcomers to the center. Raekallio’s second work is a game for learning Finnish, based on visits to various Helsinki locations by the artist and the center’s residents.
Ilmari Helin has conducted philosophical discussions with the residents about current topics.
Participants of JP Kaljonen’s project have made videos of life at the reception center.
In photographs by Maria Kausalainen, asylum seeking children have taken on various roles of popular culture.
In Sanna Sarva’s project, women living in the center have made jewellery and handicrafts together.
The Association of Experimental Electronics has built a noisy electronic art work from domestic appliance scrap.
In Suvi Nurmi’s project, the language of asylum application forms and notices has been dismantled, and the reception center’s residents have recreated poems of the words.
Participants of Ida Kotila’s workshop have drawn faces and features. Drawings of different people have been combined in a collective portrait.
Project is supported by Visek, Uudenmaan Taidetoimikunta, Kiila ry and Novita Oy
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ANNI LAAKSO
24h Camping is a caravan made of wood and recycled material. It is an open and spontaneous space, and its use is defined by the users themselves. No form of use is wrong, and no one is of wrong kind. Camping refers both to excursion and to rambling way of life. It can also mean home as it does to increasing number of people. The use of public and private spaces is strictly regulated and the private property is well protected. There are people and communities whose lifestyle does not fit inside these national and international regulations. The commercial interests guide increasingly the use of public urban space and there is less possibilities for collective and autonomic actions and movements. 24h camping is a proposal for a free and uncontrolled area. It promotes the idea of nomadic life as an alternative for the contemporary consumer culture. 24h camping is a temporary and transforming work. You can own it by visiting it.
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JOKAklubi
JOKAklubi club events are a flashy mixture of performance, music and visual arts. The themes of the nights vary, and both local artists as well as colleagues from Finland are invited. Depending on who, what and where, an unique ambience emerges. Unsafe and adorable JOKAklubi intermediates these performances.
JOKAklubi is based upon the co-operation of the Finnish artists Mirka Raito, Niina Lehtonen-Braun and Tellervo Kalleinen. First performing in the 1990’s as a group called Vuokkoset, they are now continuing their team work under the name JOKAklubi.
