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20221106

Our reception at Glow Up was warm and the evening wonderfully festive. Malla’ gig invited everyone to dance and before this we participated in a performance by Vishnu Vardhani Rajan and admired poses by Tiia Kasurinen. Before the event we were welcomed by Pii Anttila, Sanna Karimäki-Nuutinen and Kunsthalle Seinäjoki staff. Karimäki-Nuutinen gave us a thorough introduction to the Kunsthalle history and current program. During the tour we got to meet and interview artists Ida Sofia Fleming and Vesa Rahikainen who had an exhibition in the top floor. Their work was based on rust, sound and rituals. Pii also hosted us a celebratory lunch and the co-curator of Glow Up, artist Aeon Lux gave us compliments when we parted ways.

We performed together as a group consisting of artists Tonya Björkbom, Julia Elo, Viola Jalaskoski, Uljas Kaitala, Anni-Maaria Leppänen, Sade Marila, Pinja Minkkinen, Piia Muurinaho, Ignacio Pérez Pérez, Sanna Svartström, +1 and myself. Tiia From & Onni Oja, who participated in the planning of the work could not attend. The performance was prepared during a two week intensive performance art course titled “Public and Performance” organized at Kankaanpää Art School. Our group was called Eero Yli-Vakkuri & Co. in reference to recent debates on “& Co.” -style charismatically led performing arts organizations.

During the two week program we wrote a collective study journal with the group, which shares lecture notes, drafts for the performance choreography & score and other notes, general glimpses to discussions and exercises. I particularly enjoyed a day we walked the city and Uljas presented the group with the Kankaanpää cemetery gravestone deposit/storage. The site reminded me of a past gig at the Malmi Cemetery, which hosts a similar deposit of gravestone gravel.

Our performance, perhaps titled as “This is your ancestor” (but not agreed to be titled such) was an effort to transform a rock with the collective will of our group, bodies and by facilitating audience interactions with it. We advised various choreographic motifs, which were be used to exchange experiences, such us temperatures with the stone. I think the majority of the audience came to contact with the stone and some even performed solo actions with it. We developed the performance by gradually growing our collective understanding of the materials of stone, bubble gum (which contrasted the hardness) and by debating what constitutes an audience or public. We loosely defined (but experienced and abided to) collective rules on how to physically engage with each others and the audienceperformers. Trust was built trough intuition and developed a good mood for the club.

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20221029

The Evening of Artificial Spring Water Tasting at the Finnish-British Society r.y. turned out great. Tuukka Asplund was a welcoming host and the audience of the event open to encountering taste.  People shared their drinking water related memories and tasting histories. We explored in-house waters which were collected from two different tap of the building. To my surprise people experienced the kitchen tap to be more refreshing then the toilet tap water. As I learned from Tea during a previous performance, the toilet tap usually supplies fresher water then the kitchen tap. This is due to the frequent flushing, which constantly clean the pipes. Moving water is fresh – We gotta keep moving. The evening folded into a comfortable seminar, a chamber presentation of sorts. I ended up detailing my activities at the Kurängen Spring (I had brought with two of the carbonization / mineral extraction tool displays built  last month) and opening the waterworks relationship to land-art conservation, which is a topic I’ve not yet explored publicly.

Joined Outi’s blessing ceremony today. The priest conducting the blessing asked us to foster “good speech” as an opposition to “hate speech”. The ceremony was held in a church, from where we were led to restaurant Kosmos by the Bad Ass Brass Band. It felt great to dance in their trail. It was raining and we formed a bicycle bock of the parade with other wheeled friends. A fitting rite to commemorate Outi’ life and legacy. I will keep the mourning flag at the Ore.e Ref. site for a week still.

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20221015

A teaser from an upcoming book Radius: A Story of Feminist Revolution (2022) Yasmin El-Rifae detailing Cairo’s Tahrir Square events from ten years ago. The story follows activists working in the Opantish network.

Then I came back on the 30th and went straight from the airport to Opantish. And as soon as I saw the streets, I knew. I knew that we (the revolution) had lost.

Wickedest Sound (2022) 99% invisible. A good vibe podcast offering a DJ oriented narrative of the development of sound systems in Jamaica. I particularly like that operators and engineers where considered a part of the system. A good companion for Edward George’s The Strangeness of Dub (2019) mentioned earlier.

Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires (2022) Cyber (Matthew Gault). An interview with Douglas Rushkoff exposing billionaire worldviews. Not surprising but enjoyable to reconfirm. If something was surprising it was Rushkoff’s soft flirtation with ecososialism and permaculture.

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20221008

We wrote an appeal Chaim “Poju” Zabludowicz’s membership of Kiasma Support Foundation must be revoked (2022) to the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma with artist Terike Haapoja. I’m thankful for having the opportunity to work with them. The appeal is direct in its confrontation with the institution. For me it represents a step in a series of inevitable actions, which the 2021 article for No-Niin and it’s later 2022 translation for Tiedonantaja call for. I’m particularly proud that we issued a very clear demand and named people who are responsible for the current state of affairs. Our writing is in accordance to how Aruna D’Souza advices art-writers to engage with institutions, for example not to be afraid to “name names”. The text also includes a short pedagogical snippet informing audiences of “artwashing” and “soft power” (in Finnish), which are cute and could work in a textbook.

Kiasma’s Director Leevi Haapala describes Zabludowicz’s role on the board of the support foundation as unproblematic, for instance, appealing to the organization’s safer-space policy. When someone who represents art organizations being boycotted and who funds the covering up of human-rights violations holds a seat at the heart of a state institution, we have to ask: for whom is the organization keeping the space safe?

The safer-space policy cannot mean that the museum is excused from concern for human-rights violations or for apartheid, nor can it in any way support them. […] We challenge Kiasma – the organization arranging [Ars22 Gathering] discussions – to extend its safer-space policy to its own institutional structures, too. The first step in this would be to revoke Chaim “Poju” Zabludowicz’s membership of the Board. Otherwise Kiasma will endanger its credibility as a platform for discussions of social responsibility, and will be complicit in the artwashing of a political activity that endangers human lives.

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20221003

Money isn’t power but the lack of it is a symptom for the lack of it. Having worked as an assistant for many artists, I know that wethey often make drastic decisions at the very last minute. In my role as an assistant preparing exhibitions, I grew accustomed to this and would expect Outi Heiskanen to alter exhibition designs right as the museum doors opened. I served as a shield and muscle. As the museum directors met guests at the gate, we swapped the placement of art in the halls. We did this more then once.

I assumed they did this to feel alive: Being relieved of stress feels great and creatives are addicted to it. Perhaps we are afraid that art does not feel like anything and fill this void with adrenalin. A drastic last minute change is also an artists power-grab. Because our societal impact is low, we take the power which is left for us to grab. Exactly when others are most dependent on us: At the very last minute, at the opening while people are attempting to make sense of what they see.

I  think that the emerging-passing generalistshamanist, soft religious and cult aesthetic trend which artists (myself included) are inspired by, is an effort to reclaim power. Artist are becoming fantasy shamans or diy-alchemists, not necessarily to submit themselves to an another domain of reasoning but to re-establish the artist mythos of past (which never existed): We are trying to become vessels for spiritual affairs because articulated forms of power elude us.

This is not a bad thing but it is symptomatic and possibly works against our efforts to self-organize. Cult’s seldom have more then one leader. Also such aesthetics remain very sensitive to appropriation.