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Year: 2009

Genealogy – Släktforskning – Sukututkimus

RACA | Artist in residence November 2009

During the period of November 6th to 10th RACA performed as squirrels interacting with the region of Vaasa. The mission was set to investigate the narrative of the flying squirrels, in Finnish “liito-orava”. The animals are told to be living in the area of Vaasa but few people have actually seen them. However, the animals have become part of the place’s identity and a social subject for conversation.
The encounters and dialogues made became the driving force and the decision maker for the next place and narrative. Some of the places visited were the Vaasa church, an old people’s home, a ski resort, the meteorite site, a fur farm and the giant shopping mall in Tuuri.

The documentation of the project was shown as a slideshow in the window of the pet shop Vaasan Akvaarioliike between November 24th–30th.

 

More info: http://www.raca.dk

 

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Platform Parasite Art Event Friday 25.9.2009

Istanbul – Vaasa 2009

The event was part of an ongoing collaborative art project that 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, fourteen 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 by Bertol Brecht’s verfremdungseffekt, distancing as an artistic and staging effect, the CFL group explored distancing as a source for art practice in Istanbul. By generating situated and relational interventions between artists, cultural workers, arts, public space and audience, CFL generated interpretation spaces for dialogue on the contemporary human condition. CFL 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 Vaasa, CFL invites you to a continued dialogue by framing a Platform Parasite Art Event where the documentation of CFL’s 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, Hans Österblad.
Guest Guillaume Aubry (FRA)
Curator Hannah Kaihovirta-Rosvik

 

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Intimate Economies

Sarah Browne | Artist in residence September-October 2009

 

On residency in Vaasa during September and October, Sarah Browne is researching the production of muscha (moonshine). She is also 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 museum of modern art in Vaasa next year.

Browne’s research-based practice addresses this notion of ‘the economy’ as the dominant metaphor for contemporary social and political relations, and attempts to locate, create and value alternative interactions within these existing systems. She is concerned with the creation or documentation of intentional economies and temporary ‘communities’. These small-scale gatherings tend to form and be formed by forces of intention or desire, and are typically influenced by emotional affects. She often works on a domestic scale, using amateur, craft or semi-professional technologies such as upholstery, knitting, flower-pressing, carpet-knotting and film-making (super 8 and 16mm).

On 22nd October, Browne hosted a film screening of Bob Quinn’s Poitín in the Platform residency studio. (Poitín is the Irish equivalent of moonshine/ muscha). The choice of film is linked to her research into illicit alcohol production, relationships between economy and place, and pseudo/ethnographic film. Widely regarded as a classic of Irish cinema, this is also the first film made in the Irish language (English subtitles).

http://sarahbrownenews.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/screening-at-platform-studio-kasarmi-14-vaasa/

Recent exhibitions and commissions include the Irish Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale, with Gareth Kennedy and Kennedy Browne; Noughties but Nice, Twenty First Century Irish Art, Limerick City Gallery and touring (both 2009); A Romantic Interlude, commissioned for New Sites, New Fields, Leitrim Sculpture Centre (2008); A Model Society, solo exhibition at the LAB, Dublin; and Sweet Futures, commissioned for Visualise Carlow (both Ireland, 2007).

http://www.sarahbrowne.info

http://www.kennedybrowne.com

http://www.irelandvenice.ie

http://www.sweetfutures.org

 

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Jussilandia 7.–20.8.2009

Mattias Olofsson | Nordic residency July-August 2009

 

Artist statement
During my stay at Platform’s residency in Vaasa, Finland, a newspaper debate had been going on about the name of a residential estate planned by the famous Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. According to Aalto all the wooden semi-detached 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 should instead be tarred. The dark colour of the tarred houses made the local people name the village Neekerikylä (FI)/ Negerbyn (SE) – the “nigger village”.

Even though the houses today are painted in a light color, the name still remains as the official post address to the village; regardless that the inhabitant association has appealed to the city authorities since 2003 to change the official name of the area and a sign with the name ‘Aalto park’ having replaced the former sign of the village. After following the debate in local newspapers and blogs I explored the fact that changing the name of a place is not as self-evident as it might seem.

The series of photographs that I call Jussilandia is inspired by the local tradition of knitting. The original inspiration for the specific pattern that has caught my interest comes from the Korsnäs-pullover that was locally knitted by women who, together, knitted on one shared pullover. Out of these traditions the Jussi-pullover was born in the 1920s. With its simplified design and its square patterns the Jussi-pullover has hit it big time. The symbolic and identification value of the pullover is strongly rooted in the region. Originally named after Jussi Harri, the main character in a film from 1925 called Pohjalaisia, which celebrates the regional population, the pattern can nowadays even be found on sport jackets. The Finnish brand and online lifestyle clothing supplier extremeduudsonit.com, merely a variation of MTV’s Jackass, also uses the pattern as tattoos on their models. This is actually making popular culture out of cultural heritage and of the regional knitting tradition.

About the artist
Mattias Olofsson is based in Umeå, Sweden. Questions about identity in relation to belonging and exclusion are themes that reappear in his work. He is inspired by roles, masks and mix-ups and situations where identity is created through the subject taking place or being placed, or given a role, in a bigger structure. In one recent project Olofsson slips into the role of Stor-Stina, borrowing the identity of a Sami-woman who lived in the nineteenth century, belonging to the Scandinavian nomadic population. Stor-Stina never stopped growing, which also gave her the name Stor – referring to Big Stina or Stina the Great. Stor-Stina was sent around Europe to be exhibited as a human spectacle. Slipping into her identity Olofsson explores what the experience of otherness in a particular look can lead to. The traditional Sami dress she would have been wearing, worn by Mattias Olofsson, signifies not only history or tradition repeated, it is also about the displacement of the tradition that raises issues of, for example, cross-dressing. Touching the ever-reoccurring question in Olofsson’s art is: In which way does history affect us?
Olofsson’s latest shows including this theme are: Vem bryr sig om Snövit och Rödluvan? (Who cares about Snow White and Little Red Riding Hood?), Skellefteå konsthall (2009); Guest of Honor : Sweden, Indian Hall COEX, Seoul (2009); Rightfully Yours, Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Toronto (2007); Svenska Hjärtan, (Swedish Hearts), Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2004); Strategies of learning, Periferic7, Iasi (2006).

 

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Artist’s talk 18.7.2009

Mattias Olofsson and Jimmy Kuehnle

 

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 2009.

Jimmy Kuehnle is the residency artist at Ateljé Stundars during June-July 2009. 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.”

 

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Performance Night 23.4.2009

Agnes Nedregaard | Ritz, Vaasa

 

MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING

A performance displaying a visual scenario of costume, props and actions, asking how can we ever really understand one another, when our stories will always be so different?

The work is part of a larger research project, Imploding, about how our personal backgrounds inform the way we interpret situations and the people we meet. The project is supported by the Scottish Arts Council.

Performance duration: ca 15 min

In her work Agnes Nedregard explores how personal and cultural baggage informs our personal interpretations of situations, places and people. She places the experience of being a human body at the centre of her explorations, charging her performances with physical energy, actions and symbols.

The shared and unpredictable sensory and visual experience between artist, site and audience creates a platform for communication and this is where Agnes presents herself, dressed in absurd costumes, sometimes bringing objects or including projected video footage, allowing these elements to come together into an unpredictable but cohesive climax.

Agnes Nedregard is a Norwegian visual artist whose artistic practice is based within live performance whilst also encompassing video, film, drawings and sculptural installations. She graduated from the Masters of Fine Art programme at Glasgow School of Art in 2005, and has since showed her work at festivals, galleries and screenings in Europe and USA. In 2007 she was artist in residence at Stills in Edinburgh. She also teaches performance art workshops for art, theatre, film and architecture students. She is currently editor of http://www.performancekunst.no, a website for Nordic performance art. Collaboration is key to Agnes’ practice and recent collaborators include Brazilian aerial acrobat Raquel Nicoletti, Scottish painter Moray Hillary, Scottish composer Harold Nono, performance group FireBirds (2004-05), Molly Haslund (Denmark) and Anthony Schrag (Canada).

 

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Performance Night 16.4.2009

Gwendoline Robin | Platform

Gwendoline Robin associates the object with the body in space to create ever more complex installations and performances in which object responds to space, movement to fire, light to the sound of the explosion, and in which the artist’s body can explore, perform and dance with the danger and the poetry of fire.

There is immediacy in Robin’s work; a relationship with the present moment given by the suddenness of the explosion, the very essence of fire, the evanescence of smoke. It confronts us with surprise, fear, danger, relief, and with wonder, too, and humour. (extract of Gwendoline Robin in conversation with Tania Nasielski)

Website : www.gwendolinerobin.be

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One Day Show

Johan Lundh | Nordic residency April 2009

 

One Day Show is a project by Johan Lundh in collaboration with Dragos Alexandrescu, Eva Forsman, Joakim Hansson and Therese Sunngren. It is a project exploring contemporary art through a speculative study of artistic, curatorial and discursive production. During an all-day workshop, the participants have developed an exhibition together from scratch.

One Day Show was divided into three 3-hour long sections (excluding breaks): research, production and presentation. The first segment included an introduction and collaborative research. The second segment involved the collaborative production of the exhibition. The third segment comprised of the opening reception. The goal of One Day Show was to examine the risks and generosities involved in collaboration in a playful way.

Biographies

Dragos Alexandrescu is a visual artist from Romania who is now based in Vaasa, Finland. He became an active member of Platform in 2008.

Eva Forsman is a visual artist living in Jakobstad, Finland, and a member of Konstverket and Platform. For more information see:http://www.konstverket.fi

Joakim Hansson is from Hofors, Sweden, now living in Nykarleby, Finland. Joakim tries to combine different disciplines to create new angles in ways of audiovisual communication.

Johan Lundh is an artist, curator and writer, dividing his time between Stockholm, Sweden, and Vancouver, Canada. For more information see: http://www.firtheaglandlundh.net

Therese Sunngren is a visual artist living in Jakobstad, Finland, and a member of Konstverket. For more information see: http://www.konstverket.fi and http://theresesunngren.wordpress.com/

 

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SPECTACLE 14.3.2009

Toby Huddlestone | Plan 9 exchange

 

Toby Huddlestone performed his new artwork SPECTACLE, a public intervention and documentation project. 100 volunteers were needed to ‘create’ a spectacle by coming together and participating – no acting skills were required. All participants received a print of the work as a thank you for taking part.

 

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Man the interior designer

Mark Harris | Artist in Residence March 2009 | Plan 9 exchange

On March 13th Mark Harris and Toby Huddlestone, both based in Bristol, presented their work in an artist’s talk at Platform.

Mark Harris

Currently my art revolves around two practices; installation and drawing both of which are different though intersect conceptually and dialectically. The defining elements that are significant and continue through my works are those of space, movement, and material. Most importantly the common notions of understanding that binds them together, for example: an inherent understanding of inside / out, public and private, are simple points of a collective awareness that enables everything to exist in and navigate life. The alteration of such signifiers leads to a new understanding or a reflection on the meaning of space and environment.

In addition to installation, my practice has started to envelop drawing. With drawing I am able to add or separate additional elements to or from my foremost practice of installation. Drawing intersects my installation in a more ephemeral way, and generally hidden from public gaze. Drawing aids in a clearer focus towards a more subliminal space, a space that exists only in the media, newspapers or the internet.

Environment 1: No place.
Currently showing at the Oliver Holt Gallery, Dorset, UK. 28 February – 22nd March 2009.

“This environment does not guarantee the possibility of a happening but provides a pregnant space where participants must hang-on for a deferred experience. Indeed, like Kaprow’s, 18 Happenings in 6 Parts (1959) ‘no place.’ is experience by its audience only in sections. This is only a part of a larger, geographically and temporally disparate project, and it is unlikely that a participant can experience or grasp the totality of the work, certainly not from the episode presented here at the Oliver Holt Gallery. Understanding demands travel demands commitment to a global perspective, a claim to universality, ingrained in the acting out of the work. Sherborne is the most Southerly point of the three part project that arches beyond between Bristol and Vaasa, Finland. The spaces that Harris presents are performances from which all action has been stripped, the possibility for effective action is questioned, awaits interrogation. Feuerbach has said, ‘Without a doubt our epoch prefers the image to the thing.’ Harris insists on the importance of the act of the spectator in the movement away from things, with their increasingly dubious claims to authenticity, to simulacra with their desirable approximations and cinematic truth. The Situationist International demanded the elimination of all forms of representation, as a commodity the spectacular is developed to the detriment of the real”
Text by Andrew Stook, curator / director of the Oliver Holt gallery.

Environment 2: Man the interior designer.

Installation. Platform. Vaasa. Finland. Friday 20th March 2009.

“We are beginning to see what the new model of the home-dweller looks like: ‘man the interior designer’ is neither an owner nor a mere user – rather, he is an active engineer of atmosphere. Space is at his disposal like a kind of distributed system, and by controlling this space he holds sway over all possible reciprocal relations between the objects therein and hence over all the roles they are capable of assuming. (It follows that he must also be ‘functional’ himself: he and the space in question must be homogeneous if his messages of design are to leave him and return to him successfully.)”
Baubrillard, Jean. The System of Objects, Verso1996. Pp25

‘Man the interior designer’ as with ‘No place’ will be a built environment that imposes a starkness of object yet implies a vast presents of possibility. ‘Man the interior designer’ will be a place that is built to stand in and contemplate, contemplate notions of structure, placement and contrived decision-making. Once again the entire space will be engulfed by the artwork creating an environment / installation. Within this next installment of the three works platform will play host to the final primer for the finally show at Plan 9 in Bristol UK

Environment 3: Institute.
Duo exhibition, Mark J Harris / Duncan Mountford. Plan 9, Bristol, UK. 14TH May – 30th May 2009.

 

 

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