Platform's current Artists in Residence, RACA, will present their work wednesday 4.11. at 20.00, at Ritz/Kulturskafferiet (Kyrkoesplanaden/Kirkkopuistikko 22 A).

RACA is a Copenhagen based group consisting of Pulsk Ravn and Johan Carlsson. The group works with urban social actions and creations of imagined everyday situations. With their backgrounds in design and architecture is RACA challenging the borders of art, architecture and design, investigating and questioning how to bring theories into everyday life.

RACA has participated in several exhibitions both in Denmark and abroad. Among those; Montreal / Canada / 2008, Souvenirs / Bergen / Norway / 2008, / Van Alen Institute /  New York / 2006. In 2004 RACA received a three-year grant by “Statens Kunstfond” (Denmark’s Arts Council) based on their research and contribution to a more un-predictable city.

More info: http://www.raca.dk

After the presentation there will be musical entertainment by local DJs. Welcome!

On residency in Vaasa, Sarah Browne (Ireland) has been researching the production of muscha (moonshine). She has also been developing a new film work that deals with natural and bodily metaphors, particularly ideas of love, control and intoxication used to discuss moments of crisis and breakdown within capitalism and ’the economy’. The result of the research will be shown in an exhibition at Kuntsi moderm muesum of art in Vaasa next year.

Read more

---

The Platform Parasite Art Event is part of an ongoing collaborative art project that the Platform initiative Cheap Finnish Labour (CFL) started as a social intervention in Istanbul and realised in parallel with the inauguration of the 11th Istanbul Biennale. Between the 8th and 15th September 14 artists and cultural workers who run the Platform Contemporary Art Space in Vaasa, attended and explored the centre of Istanbul and the venue of the Istanbul Biennale. Inspired from Bertol Brecht’s verfremdungseffekt, distancing as an artistic and staging effect, the CFL group in Istanbul explored distancing as a source for art practice. By generating situated and relational interventions between artists, cultural workers, arts, public space and audience the CFL group in Istanbul generated interpretation spaces for dialogue on the contemporary human condition. The CFL group highlighted the outcomes from the intervention by stressing Parasitism; an activity where the parasite stays alive by creating a symbiotic relation to the host.
Now, back in Platform Vasa The CFL group invites to a continued dialogue by framing a Platform Parasite Art Event where the documentation of CFL Istanbul experience is presented as a replica and postproduction of the Istanbul atmosphere. The Platform Parasite Art Event is composed as a concentrated social zone including Istanbul staging, guides, exteriors, interiors, noise, music, flavours and movements.

CFL: Dragos Alexandrescu, Albert Braun, Ulrika Ferm, Joakim Hansson, Rasmus Hedlund, Marcus Lerviks, Eija Leinonen, Maria Lundström, Maria Nordbäck, Peter Rosvik, Tuomo Väänänen, Maria Ångerman and Hans Österblad.
Guest: Guillaume Aubry (FRA)
Curator: Hannah Kaihovirta-Rosvik

Opening the exhibition Jussilandia by Mattias Olofsson 6th of august at 19.00 Welcome!

Open until 20.8 thursdays and sundays 14.00 - 18.00, and on wednesdays 14.00 - 20.00.

---

artist statement
During my stay at Platforms residency in Vaasa, Finland, a newspaper debate have been going on about the name of a residential estate planned by the famous Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. According to Aalto all the wooden pair houses that form the area should originally have been painted in pastel colors. But due to changes that ABB Strömberg, a local factory, did to the houses - that were planned to be rented out to the factory's employees, upset Aalto and he suggested that the houses instead should be tarred. The dark color of the tarred houses, made the local people name the village Neekerikylä (FI) Negerbyn (SE) - the nigger village.

Read more

Platform arranges an artist talk with Mattias Olofsson, based in Umeå (SE) and Jimmy Kuehnle based in St. Louis (US).

Mattias Olofsson is the residency artist at Platform during July-August.

I investigate questions involving identity in relation to the sense of belonging and of being an outsider.

My work are inspired by roles, masks and cases of mistaken identity, that is to say, situations in which one’s identity comes into being because one is aor assumes a role, in a larger structure.

---

Jimmy Kuehnle is the residency artist at Ateljé Stundars during June-July. Ateljé Stundars is part of the international Artist in Residence programme hosted by KulturÖsterbotten.

The simultaneous proximity and distance of people in urban centers motivates the core of my art practice. Members of society are disconnected from one another despite almost daily contact in a monotonous cycle of daily tasks. I seek to challenge the public in order to break it out of its repetitive cycle. Humans are very adept at assimilating the world around them to the point that unusual experiences quickly become commonplace. Many wonders and sublime experiences are overlooked.

I make sculpture and performance props using materials ranging from heavy steel to light inflatable fabric to create novel experiences for the viewer. The work is a hybrid of sculpture, performance, new media and interactive practices. My recent inflatable suits have allowed me to take the work into the streets for direct contact with the public. My sculpture and performances are intentionally absurd to the point that traffic stops, pedestrians gather, and interactions occur.