WG7SPACE + PRACTICE
ABOUT
This working group develops artistic research activities and new forms of exchange outside of the seminar room. We focus on addressing the multiplicity of spaces and the ecology of spatial practices that these suggest. We approach space through a variety of physical, conceptual, imaginary, discursive, ephemeral (etc.) phenomena, each of which entails specificities, but which are also potentially tangentially related to each other. We develop methods of imparting the ways in which different spaces structure and format the taking place of things, gestures and events.
MEMBERS
- Andrea Rolfes (Independent arts, Johannesburg/ South Africa)
- Anita Szentesi (WITS School of Architecture and Planning, Johannesburg/ South Africa)
- Antti Nyyssölä (Academy of Fine Arts/KUVA, Uniarts Helsinki)
- BJ Engelbrecht (WITS School of Art, Johannesburg/ South Africa)
- Brigitta Stone-Johnson (WITS School of Architecture and Planning, Johannesburg/South Africa)
- Danae Theodoridou (FHK, Fontys University of Applied Sciences, NL).
- Denise Ziegler (Aalto ARTS, Aalto University Helsinki)
- Jaakko Ruuska (Academy of Fine Arts/KUVA, Uniarts Helsinki)
- Jill Richards (independent pianist, improviser/ South Africa)
- Kristen Kreider (Slade/UCL)
- Luis Guerra Miranda (Academy of Fine Arts/KUVA, Uniarts Helsinki)
- Maiju Loukola (Academy of Fine Arts/KUVA, Uniarts Helsinki) Contact for WG7
- Marloeke van der Vlugt (HKU Utrecht)
- Mika Elo (Academy of Fine Arts/KUVA, Uniarts Helsinki)
- Sharon Morris (Slade/UCL) Henk Slager (HKU, Utrecht)
- Tero Heikkinen (Taiteellisen tutkimuksen tk CfAR, Uniarts Helsinki)
- Tuija Kokkonen (Theatre Academy/Uniarts Helsinki)¨
- Ulvi Haagensen (Estonian Academy of Arts/EKA, Tallinn)
- Zen Marie (WITS School of Art, Johannesburg/ South Africa)
UPCOMING
This working group has developed a regular (approximately monthly) meeting schedule that provides a forum for an international and interdisciplinary group of artists to share and exchange research.
PREVIOUS
Members of this working group organised MAKING ARTISTIC RESEARCH PUBLIC EARN Conference UniArts Helsinki (2022).
How can the discourses and debates on distribution of sensibilities and politics of city practices (incl. practices of theories) be rethought from a spatial point of view? How to allow new spaces and positions to emerge and act differently from what the prevailing orders, norms and roles suggest? Can diverse encounters and clashes within a multiplicity of agents, human and more-than-human, trigger the opening-up of positions and spaces for reorganization, and if so, how?
At the heart of this process was a key location in Helsinki – the Hietsu Pavilion. This had been renovated during 2014–2015 by volunteers and local residential association to be used by NGOs, cultural actors in various scales, and Töölö residents as their own village house. The pavilion is run by a non-profit public organization. Hietsu Pavilion and its exquisite surroundings are known as the event-space for topical and timeless, polemic and possible worlds to come fore.
Appreciating the Hietsu spirit, the City as Space of Rules and Dreaming temporarily inhabited the pavilion late May 2024 to gather with fellow artists and researchers to explore practically and discursively under the rubric ‘city practices, practicing the city’, exploring questions such as: How to create spaces of uncertainty and potentiality for things and beings to emerge and concretize? How to create spaces of disagreement and temporality that allow the emergence of new collectives that do not exclude certain particularities? What kinds of dialogues, dissonances, and counter-hegemonies are, could or should be demonstrated and suggested? What constitutes as the ethos or spirit of Helsinki or any other city today – and what lies under the (polished and capitalized, or unfinished and incomplete) surface of the city?
(See also Uniarts Helsinki project page.)