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Finnish foundations and ministry provide millions in emergency aid for cultural sector in distress

The Ministry of Education and Culture has granted Taike EUR 500,000 in extraordinary funding. Taike had already announced that it was setting aside around EUR 100,000 for alleviating the coronavirus crisis. The Finnish Cultural Foundation will match the sum granted to Taike by the ministry, at EUR 500,000. The Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation, the Saastamoinen Foundation, the Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland and the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation are each providing EUR 100,000 in emergency aid via Taike. This brings the total aid from the government and the foundations up to EUR 1.5 million.

Taike will open a grant application round at the beginning of April, and grant decisions will be made at the end of the month. Primarily the aid is intended to take the form of short-term grants for freelance artists whose work has been significantly hampered by the coronavirus epidemic. More detailed application criteria will be published later. With this funding, Taike is expecting to provide at least 500 grants.

“The coronavirus epidemic is stirring the Finnish society at large, but its impact is felt particularly keenly in the cultural sector. We want to do our bit to help as effectively and quickly as possible. This aid will provide some relief during the acute situation this spring, but as the effects of the epidemic are likely to roll over into the autumn, significantly more drastic actions will be needed from the society,” explains Jari Sokka, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Finnish Cultural Foundation.

“The fact that this project has worked out and succeeded in gathering a EUR 1.5 million aid package in just a couple of days is a sign of the collective responsibility that the Finnish society is willing to assume, and of the collaboration ability of the public and private sectors.  The foundations have been exceptionally obliging in assisting arts and culture professionals in these singular circumstances. I value that very highly,” says the Minister of Science and Culture, Hanna Kosonen.

“This aid package will provide vital first aid for the urgent distress of the arts and cultural sector. However, it is just one of many measures that will be needed for the sector to survive the circumstances. The government has also decided on several actions that will provide support for businesses and entrepreneurs in the creative industries.  Preparatory work on further measures is under way,” the minister says.

In addition to the funding apportioned to Taike, the Finnish Cultural Foundation will pay out a total of EUR 13.5 million in academic and artistic grants this spring via its regional funds, based on applications received in January. Half a million euros of this total consists of additional funding to help the arts sector withstand the crisis, as decided yesterday by the Cultural Foundation’s Board of Trustees. The regional funds are also paying attention to the particular predicament in which freelancers find themselves. Grant decisions will be made during April and May, and the grants will be payable by the end of May.

The Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland and Föreningen Konstsamfundet have adopted a temporary aid form entitled “Kultur under tiden” (Culture in the Now), intended for artists and cultural sector professionals impacted by the corona crisis. The total sum for this aid is EUR 400,000. It is open to applications from arts professionals who work in Swedish in Finland, and who are unable to complete projects meant for audiences according to plan, but who are carrying out other high-quality operations or new projects during the epidemic situation. For more information on the grants, see www.kulturfonden.fi www.konstsamfundet.fi.

Further information:

Ministry of Education and Culture: Eeva Kärkkäinen, Special Advisor to Minister Hanna Kosonen, +358 40 1492 201
Ministry of Education and Culture: Riitta Kaivosoja, Director General, +358 40 7028 704
Arts Promotion Centre Finland: Paula Tuovinen, Director, +358 40 5838 549
Finnish Cultural Foundation: Antti Arjava, Secretary General, +358 50 385 7600
Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation: Marja Leskinen, Secretary General, +358 40 514 6969
Saastamoinen Foundation: Petteri Karttunen, Chairman of the Board, +358 40 500 1053
Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland: Sören Lillkung, Executive Director, +358 40 620 7500
Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation: Arto Mäenmaa, Executive Director, +358 50 2536

Grand prizes for significant achievements in culture

Reetta Kivelä

The prize is awarded for developing the perfect basic oat product, for responsible culinary innovation, and for modernising Finnish cuisine.

Reetta Kivelä is a Doctor of Science in Food Technology and a co-inventor of the oat-based vegetarian protein Pulled Oats (Nyhtökaura).

Kivelä graduated with a Master of Science in Food Chemistry from the University of Helsinki in 2003. In 2011, her thesis was selected as the the year’s best dissertation in applied biosciences from the University of Helsinki. Kivelä was the first researcher in the world to discover in an oxidation mechanism the cause for oat beta-glucan degradation during storage.

In 2014, Kivelä began testing the possibilities for using oats as a source of protein, based on an idea from her old friend, the industrial designer Maija Itkonen. Itkonen, Kivelä and Zhongqing Jiang established the start-up Gold&Green Foods. After a long and winding journey, reaching as far as China, the product branded as Pulled Oats was launched in shops in 2016. It has just five basic ingredients: oat, yellow peas, broad beans, cold-pressed rapeseed oil and salt. Demand for Pulled Oats was huge from the start, and in 2017 consumers voted it the Finnish Food of the Year.

Accolades received by Reetta Kivelä have included Chief Technology Officer of the Year, Young Research Entrepreneur of the Year, and University of Helsinki Alumna of the Year.

Outi Pieski

The prize is awarded for tying everlasting knots, for defending northern nature and peoples, and for making nonverbal history come alive.

Visual artist Outi Pieski is known for her impressive installations, as well as for paintings and photographs with themes relating to northern nature and Sámi culture. 

Pieski grew up in Helsinki and graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts. She also studied traditional Sámi crafts at the Sámi Education Institute in Inari, northern Finland. She now divides her time living and working between southern Finland and her Sámi father’s home region of Utsjoki in the far north.

Sámi handcrafts are an immeasurably valuable cultural heritage. Pieski combines the ancient colours, forms and techniques of Sámi handcrafts with contemporary art traditions. Her paintings glow with northern light, while drawing from present-day subject matter. Some of her central themes are the history and future of the Sámi peoples, indigenous rights, human relationships with nature, equality, and sustainable development. Her light artwork at the Lux Helsinki festival in 2017, which consisted of images of water flowing freely from the windows of Helsinki Cathedral, drew attention to the issues of water rights, water usage and environmentalism.

Pieski is not only an active advocate of Sámi culture but also a master craftswoman. Her work manages to make nature, culture and art simultaneously local and universal. Pieski received the Fine Arts Academy of Finland Prize in 2017, and took part in creating the Finnish pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale.

Risto Saarinen

The prize is awarded to an ecumenical thinker for building bridges and upholding hope.

Risto Saarinen is a Professor of Ecumenical Research at the University of Helsinki, a highly valued investigative scientist, and a member of the international community of non-denominational theologians. 

Saarinen has doctorates in both Theology and Philosophy from the University of Helsinki, as well as an honorary doctorate in Theology from the University of Copenhagen. He has led numerous research projects, most recently a centre of excellence of the Academy of Finland entitled Reason and Religious Recognition.

Saarinen’s publications include hundreds of scholarly articles and 27 books. In parallel with his extensive international career, he has written some works for a more lay audience, and has recently completed a trilogy on love, trust and hope for scholarly and lay audiences alike, published by Gaudeamus.

Saarinen tutors younger theologians and philosophers at all levels, from first-year students to recognised Finnish and international talents. He has made significant efforts to construct global research networks. Within the field of theology, Saarinen builds bridges between systematic, empirical and practical theology. In recent years, Saarinen has also tackled the contemporary theme of relations between religion and politics. His answer to fear-mongering and confrontation is a theology of hope.

Edvard Fazer Prize Awarded to principal dancer Linda Haakana

Linda Haakana sai Edvard Fazer palkinnon vuonna 2020

The prize was presented by the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Finnish Cultural Foundation, Jari Sokka, and a jury member Madeleine Onne, Artistic Director of the National Ballet. Besides Onne, the jury includes Gita Kadambi, General Director of the Finnish National Opera and Ballet, and Leena Niemistö, Chair of the Finnish National Opera and Ballet.

The jury based its decision on Linda Haakana’s long and successful career at the Finnish National Ballet. Haakana excels in the classical repertoire as well as the contemporary dance and she is an exceptional artist, with a special intensity which will draw the viewer into the performance. She is always willing to share her skills and expertise with her colleagues, making her a genuine inspiration for the next generation of Finnish dancers.

Linda Haakana was signed on by the Finnish National Ballet in 2002, and named as a soloist dancer in 2013 and a principal dancer in 2014.

This is the 18th instalment of the Finnish Cultural Foundation’s Edvard Fazer Prize, which has been awarded within the Finnish National Opera and Ballet since 1984. Previous winners are the dancers Aku Ahjolinna, Ulrika Hallberg, Maija Hänninen, Tommi Kitti, Jarkko Niininen, Juha Kirjonen, Barbora Kohoutková, Minna Tervamäki, Jaakko Eerola, Carolina Agüero, Timo Kokkonen, Nicholas Ziegler, Salla Eerola, Tiina Myllymäki, Samuli Poutanen, Michal Krčmář and Eun-Ji Ha. All the dancers of the National Ballet received the Prize as an ensemble in 1994.

The Finnish Cultural Foundation’s Edvard Fazer Prize

The Edvard Fazer Prize is a rotating trophy awarded biennially by the Finnish Cultural Foundation within the Finnish National Ballet for merits in promoting dance. The Edvard Fazer Prize was created during the Finnish National Ballet’s sixtieth anniversary year in 1982, and was first awarded in 1984. The trophy is a silver cup donated by the Titular Commercial Counsellor and Mrs Roger Lindberg and gifted by the staff of the Finnish National Opera to their then Director, Edvard Fazer, on the occasion of his seventieth birthday in 1931. In 1996, the Fazer Music Foundation transferred its assets to the Finnish Cultural Foundation, and the Fazer Music Fund was established. At that point the award was renamed the Finnish Cultural Foundation’s Edvard Fazer Prize. Today the Fazer Music Fund is known as the Roger Lindberg Music Fund, and its purpose is to support Finnish musical arts and to continue awarding the prize that carries Edvard Fazer’s name.

Giving art a second chance

Showing work at a gallery is undoubtedly a highlight for any emerging artist but it can also be a cause of stress. It might take a whole year of hard work to put together a show but as soon as the exhibition is taken down it all fades away.

Andrea Coyotzi Borja in Mexico. Picture: Patricia Borja Osorio

Andrea Coyotzi Borja in Mexico. Photo: Patricia Borja Osorio

– It is often difficult to sell the artworks and after the exhibition one has to figure out what to do with them. Many artists don’t have a studio or storage space because renting one is too expensive, tells Andrea Coyotzi Borja, a Mexican-born artist and a doctoral student at Aalto university.

To address this matter Coyotzi Borja and his fellow artworker and curator Farbod Fakharzadeh came up with a concept of acquiring a big space where these artworks are offered another chance by making them visible to anyone: the public, other artists, collectors, and curators. They titled their project Taidekirppis, which humorously refers to the way the artworks are recycled after an exhibition.

The missing link

Taidekirppis is about to kick off in March 2020 and the funding covers the project for one year. Coyotzi Borja and Fakharzadeh will be managing the space and the website, picking up artworks, handling social media, and organizing open calls for artists to take part in the project.

Part of their plan is to engage resident curators to work with the collection while the artworks are in the space. If someone wants to buy a piece of art, they can contact the artist directly but Fakharzadeh and Coyotzi Borja say that selling is not their main intention and there is no profit involved. Their goal is to create a space and an archive of exhibitions and works by emerging artists in the Finnish art scene.

– In order to look at art or any other phenomena in a meaningful way you need to look at it in historical context. But there is no wholesome record of exhibitions and works by Finland-based emerging artists so everything seems a bit scattered. A big part of this project is to put together a physical and digital archive that can be looked back on to give a historical context to how things were, how they are, and what can be, explains Fakharzadeh.

Addressing important issues

Another key objective is allowing Taidekirppis to be a platform for new ideas and discussions, and to critically address complex issues in the emerging art scene. Fakharzadeh points out that making ends meet is difficult for most artists who often don’t get compensated for the hours they put in – yet they have decided that art is what they want to dedicate their lives to.

– Contemporary art is not always made with an eye on the market, and young artists are not necessarily taking into account how to make money out of it. There should be alternative ways that are more protective towards the people putting their lives in to this. Artworkers are people too, they have mortgages, lives, and children, Fakharzadeh tells.

Both Coyotzi Borja and Fakharzadeh are excited to see how the project will unfold and how it will be received, hoping to make a change for the better.

– First this was just an idea, which is now turning into an actual project with this funding, Fakharzadeh says.

– My motivation comes from doing something about a situation that really frustrates me.

taidekirppis.com/
instagram.com/taidekirppis/
facebook.com/taide.kirppis

Text: Laura Iisalo

Cultural Foundation doubles its multi-year grants

In its October round of grant applications, the Cultural Foundation received 8,800 applications, which was 500 more than the previous year. The foundation has decided to award EUR 24 million in grants for the October round, making the total for the whole financial year EUR 44 million.

This round saw 439 full-year working grants being awarded, 285 for sciences and 154 for arts. A record number of multi-year grants is being awarded this year, totalling 72 grants for nearly EUR 3.4 million. This comprises 34 grants spanning two years, 21 spanning three years and 17 four years.

– The most explicit objective of the Foundation’s new strategy was to increase our support for long-term academic and artistic work, explains Jari Sokka, Chairman of the Board of Trustees.

Additionally, the Foundation awarded 40 co-funding grants for doctoral students, which can be combined with salaried employment at a university or other research institution.

– This is another form of funding that we are looking to increase further. It doubles the grant period, meaning that a two-year grant, for example, can optimally provide the four-year funding needed for a PhD. It is also probably the most lucrative form of funding in terms of the grantee’s net income, Sokka explains.

Näppäri Method activities receive largest arts grant

Näppärit areenalla. Kuva: Krista Järvelä

The largest arts grant, EUR 215,000, was awarded to the Finnish Folk Music Institute in Kaustinen for developing activities related to its Näppäri Method.

Glims & Gloms dance company from Espoo was awarded EUR 110,000 for expanding its Mall Theatre operations. This is a touring pop-up theatre company devised by Glims & Gloms that brings performances for the whole family to easily accessible locations in shopping centres.

Fifteen grants worth EUR 360,000 in total were awarded within the arts to projects aiming to bring art into care institutions. The objective of these grants is to promote cultural equality and through art to improve the quality of life of persons requiring special support or care.

One million euros in additional funding

For its October 2019 grant application round, the Foundation released EUR 1 million in additional funding earmarked for research concerning the energy market of the future and/or the technology revolution. There were 65 applicants, almost all of them research groups. The applicants represented many disciplines, and the total sum applied for exceeded EUR 13 million. Six applicants were successful.

Increasing competition

The sciences made up for 53% of all grants awarded, and the arts 47%. Within scientific grants, 31% were for thesis work, 11 % for research and 9% for post doc research. The number of applicants for science grants grew this year by nearly 400, to total around 3,600. Within art grants, 35% were for artistic work and 9% for organising events. The number of arts applicants grew by just over 100, totalling 5,200.

Despite the increase in funds to be awarded, competition for the grants is increasingly tough. The Foundation was only able to award around 9% of the funds applied for (compared to over 10% last year). Approval rates were almost equally strict in both science and art, even though there are differences between fields due to donations received by the Foundation.

– Thanks to our donor funds, our funding pressure is slightly lower within the musical arts than in visual arts, for example, explains Secretary General Antti Arjava.

This year, women made up 59% of grantees (and 58% of all applicants). Non-Finnish citizens accounted for 11% of applicants and 10% of grantees. Grants from the October round were awarded to applicants in around one hundred municipalities in Finland. The regional funds’ grants will be given out later in the spring, based on the January round of applications.

A list of the successful grantees from the Central Fund’s October round can be found at https://apurahat.skr.fi/myonnot

Fighting the mold we are forced into

Women are expected to invest plenty of time and effort in caring for their looks. The requirement remains, even as beauty ideals change from one society and generation to another. In current Western society, you must first and foremost be skinny. It is a prerequisite for being seen as beautiful.

A prime manifestation of the requirement are the weight loss shows on TV.

– There are structures of discipline and control in these shows. Participants’ diets are controlled and they are subjected to extreme exercise situations that cross the line, Susanne Ritter says.

– There is an aspect of surveillance, too, as participants are basically watched all the time, either by the coaches, cameras or viewers.

According to the shows, being fat is the worst, being skinny is great, and being fat and happy is just not possible.

– I think it is important to research these shows that influence people so much. If there is enough awareness, maybe things can change.

The shows dangle a carrot in front of people’s noses, making them think they should change, too, instead of being content with themselves the way they are. It has become the norm for women to always be dieting, and this starts already in childhood.

– Obviously, I am not against exercise, just this ideal set in stone. It discourages women from participating in public life, unless they fit a certain mold. If you are fat, then necessarily you are lazy, too, and undisciplined as well. You won’t be hired, you can’t get married or be a proper bride if you are fat. Thin is equated with healthy, which is not true. People, and women especially, would have better things to do than worry about their looks.

Ritter sees a vested interest in the preoccupation with thinness.

– So you have to be fit to be seen as productive, which means you have to buy gym memberships etc. There are far too many parties benefitting financially for the pressure to stop.

Originally from Dusseldorf, Germany, Ritter moved to Helsinki in 2013 to study for her MSSc. Since 2018, she has been with Åbo Akademi University in Turku as a PhD student.

– I have a BA in Journalism from the University of Vienna. Media research into the way overweight was portrayed on TV interested me already then. I was lucky enough to be accepted to the Media and Global Communication program of the University of Helsinki. I did my Master’s thesis on makeover shows. In it, I researched the thin ideal in relation to oppression. I wanted to expand the concept into a doctoral thesis.

In her thesis, Ritter will compare Finnish and US TV makeover shows.

– There are differences in Finnish and US societies. The American Dream permeats the local shows, too; you can achieve a thin body, if you just want it bad enough. Finnish society is more collective and in the Finnish shows there is more emphasis on working as a group.

Text and photograph: Susanna Bell

Travel Broadens the Mind – Mobility Grant Makes It Possible

Valokuvaaja Uwa Iduozee ja kirjoittaja Maryan Abdulkarim

Photographer Uwa Iduozee and writer Maryan Abdulkarim. Photo: Anna Bui

In the photo, Sunny Odom, a Vihti-based undertaker, is floating in the water with his eyes closed. The middle of the photo shows his face as well as a faint outline of his body just under the surface of the water. Otherwise there is nothing in the photo but the surface of the river and its ripples.

– The photograph could be of any place…, says photographer Uwa Iduozee.

– Like Vantaanjoki, for example, chimes in writer Maryan Abdulkarim.

– … but it is of the Niger River, continues Iduozee.

The photograph was on display at the Festival of Political Photography at the Finnish Museum of Photography, but it is more closely connected with Iduozee and Abdulkarim’s book project, in which they, in words and through pictures, tell the stories of eight first-generation black immigrants who came to Finland.

These immigrants came to Finland between 1950s-90s from the United States, England, Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia and Nigeria, and represent the same generation as Iduozee and Abdulkarim’s, now in their thirties, parents. The original working title of the book was This is not how I imagined my life.

– Many immigrant tales here often begin by someone arriving in Finland. We wanted to do things differently. We picked, on purpose, people who didn’t move here until they were already adults. In their case, they had time to have lots of different dreams before coming to Finland, to where they had to come, for example, to escape civil war, for love, work, study, or for other reasons, explains Abdulkarim.

In her book project, supported by the Kone Foundation, Abdulkarim asked immigrants about their lives prior to moving to Finland and Iduozee photographed them in Finnish surroundings. The authors, however, begun to feel that it was strange to document people’s stories only in Finland.

What’s more, not everyone’s connection to their past life was neatly cut off at the Finnish border. Many regularly still visit their native countries and, in Odum’s case, he runs a hotel back in his hometown.

Therefore, in March 2018, Abdulkarim and Iduozee travelled, with the aid of a 5000-euro mobility grant awarded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation, to Nigeria. They documented Odum’s life on the shores of the Niger River in Asaba City, located quite close to a delta, and the life of retired Ike Chime in Enugu, located about a hundred and some miles East of Asaba.

– People are more naked in an environment charged with history and things that may be difficult for them to deal with. You could sense a certain reticence in them at first, when we got to see this side of their life and for example family members who are not always in positions that would evoke pride. It did, however, bring us closer to the subjects of our documentary, says Iduozee.

At one point, Iduozee and Abdulkarim were walking with a group of men, looking at places and houses from their past. These landscapes started to evoke memories in them, something that would probably not have happened in Finland.

Iduozee made it his goal not to have the new environment lure him into becoming side-tracked with documenting landscapes exotic to him.

– I wanted to simplify the visual aspect, just like I would in Finland. The picture of Odum keeping afloat on the Niger River is just like that. It does not depend on its environment but a feeling, Iduozee states. 

Iduozee managed to get a similar picture of Chime in Enugu, as he was smelling flowers in the yard of his old home, becoming swept away by his own nostalgia for a moment.

Ike Chime nuuhkii kukkia vanhan kotitalonsa pihalla Enugussa. Kuva: Uwa Iduozee

Ike Chime is smelling flowers in the yard of his old home in Enugu. Photo: Uwa Iduozee

The largest part of the 5000-euro travel grant was spent on flights to and from Finland to Nigeria. The authors were taken aback that travelling in Nigeria was slower and more expensive than they had thought.

In the cities, motorcycle taxies would take you from one place to another for a few euros, but local flights would set you back by a few hundred euros. Long-distance busses were inexpensive, although, at one time, the travellers had to sit on the bus for two hours just to wait for it to get full. Only then did it set out.

A foreigner may not rent a car by themselves in Nigeria, but they must also hire a local driver along with it.

The travellers noticed that there were plenty of police around who regularly pulled cars over to ask for papers. Earlier, there had been a lot of hold-ups on the roads of Nigeria, but the increased visibility of the police has cut them back.

– I was not worried for my safety at any point of the journey. I can pass for a local quite well as long as I don’t open my mouth, says Abdulkarim.

Uwa Iduozee’s photographs from a book project were on display at the Festival of Political Photography at the Finnish Museum of Photography in Cable Factory (Kaapelitehdas Helsinki) 8 Mar – 26 May 2019.

More information on Mobility Grants

Text: Antti Kivimäki

Pollution may result in memory decline

Air pollutants in urban areas increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. An extensive research project of the University of Eastern Finland is now aiming to uncover, apart from the statistical connection, the influence mechanisms at play on a cellular level.

– In cell cultures using mouse cells, we have noticed that different brain cell types react differently to air pollutants, recounts Associate Professor of Neurobiology Katja Kanninen.

In addition to neurons, the brain contains glial cells that support the nervous system. Microglial cells, or defence cells, remove damaged neurons and external microbes. Astrocytes maintain the physical structure of the brain and the balance of the nervous system.

In tests, glial cells exposed to pollutant particles produce more antioxidants than neurons do, preventing oxidative damage. Glial cells, in particular, react to quite minuscule changes.

– Before, Alzheimer’s disease was mainly examined in relation to neurons, but in recent years the importance of glial cells has become more pronounced. Changes in glial cells directly affect the operation of neurons.

This multidisciplinary project combining four research teams concentrates on the interplay of air pollutants and Alzheimer’s disease from a number of angles.

In tests, living mice have been exposed to air pollutants via their respiratory tract. In these cases, oxidative damage and inflammation responses have been different in the brains of healthy mice compared to those simulating Alzheimer’s disease.

It has also been observed that in cells exposed to pollutants, their mitochondria generate less energy. Mitochondria are organelles that produce, from carbohydrates using oxygen, adenosine triphosphate, which provides the cell its energy.

The influence mechanism is again under investigation: Do air pollutants primarily damage mitochondrial DNA or, for example, parts of the breathing chain? Is damage to mitochondria the cause for the exacerbation of the cell inflammatory state or yet another symptom of the pollutant load?

The spearhead project funded by the Cultural Foundation has expanded into a Europe-wide research consortium. University of Eastern Finland researchers Kanninen, Professor Tarja Malm and Associate Professor Pasi Jalava succeeded in securing research funding from the EU’s Horizon 2020 Programme.

The undertaking involves many research groups and industry partners around Europe. It is coordinated by Jalava. The purpose is to study the effect of emissions on brains more extensively and to generate new ideas for medicine development.

– The project also studies human brain cells. There are many challenges, but from stem cells, it is possible to produce human brain cells for a cell model. In this way, we can get closer to the real situation and see whether the effects of air pollutants are the same as with mice, says Kanninen.

Text: Antti Kivimäki
Pictures: Petri Jauhiainen

From exclusion into connection through art

Moe Mustafa has always been his family’s artistic maverick. Therefore, his mother reacted calmly to her son’s announcement that he was moving from Italy to Finland.

– Wrap up, then. It’s cold there.

Mustafa had travelled to Italy as a photographer and actor in a journalism theatre company. He had been interested in theatre since university.

– I gathered together some friends and directed them on stage: go that way, do this. Later I worked in my first real profession as a graphic designer, but I wanted more. I thought a lot about our physical being and how worlds can be created on stage, Mustafa says.

Ohjaaja Moe Mustafa. Kuva: Heikki Tuuli

Debut play on a tough subject

From Italy, Mustafa arrived in Imatra. He made friends with people, learnt Finnish and exhibited photographs at Virta Cultural Centre. Unfortunately, his more ambitious professional goals did not seem feasible in small-town Eastern Finland.

– I went to Ylöjärvi to study TV and film studies at Voionmaa Institute. I had to interrupt my studies and return briefly to Imatra due to a lack of funds. But then my world turned upside down.

He was admitted to study at Tampere University of Applied Sciences. His debut as a playwright and director came already before graduating as a Bachelor of Cultural art and media.

The play When a Rainbow is Black consisted of four monologues on harassment and rape experienced by homosexuals, of which one was Mustafa’s own. Not for Men, on the other hand, combined theatre with a video installation to portray social, familial and sexual conflicts from the perspectives of four women.

Mustafa was nervous about his first collaboration with a major theatre company, but the team at the Tampere Theatre managed to allay most of his anxiety with their welcoming and friendly attitude. The video installation created for the play Pakolaiset (“Refugees”) was a huge success.

A grant can help you feel appreciated

Just over a year ago, director and artist Moe Mustafa had no project to work on. It was a sad period for such an active and forward-looking person. He was browsing the internet in slight desperation when he spotted an open grant application period and filled in the application.

Mustafa never believed he would receive a grant – he was just trying his luck. Having pressed Send he forgot all about it, until the approval letter came in the post. He was overjoyed by the grant: the fact that he and his work had been seen.

In May Mustafa flew to Finland from Berlin for two days to accept his grant diploma.

– The least I could do to show my gratitude for the grant was to be there in person. I hardly knew anyone at the party, but it was wonderful to be there and feel a part of the community.

Classics and all-new material on the way

With his one-year grant, Mustafa intends to write three plays and direct one of them. They will include new adaptations of Franz Xaver Kroetz’s classic Request Concert and Valery Bryusov’s psychodrama The Wayfarer. The third play, Mustafa’s original manuscript, will delve into the philosophy of existentialism and our awareness of others.

Right now, he is dedicating his time and energy to finding the work group and venue for the first of the three performances. Luckily, he has the support of a producer and the project is progressing step by step and negotiation by negotiation.

– As a newcomer you have to work twice as hard to be seen in the industry. I am prepared for that, but at the same time I wish that big theatres had more opportunities for new authors and perspectives.

In Finland, where most directors are alumni of the same school, a self-taught director from a different background can contribute something completely new.

– I am particularly interested in visuality: how actors move, as well as artistic composition in general. My style is avant-gardist.

Touched by sensitive subjects

In his work, Mustafa handles psychological and social issues such as loneliness, isolation and exclusion; issues familiar both to Finnish culture and to the author himself.

– Being part of minority is not a new thing to me, I have experienced it my whole life. I was born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents, and we moved to Jordan during the Gulf War. I have now lived in Finland for ten years and am a Finnish citizen, but with my black hair and beard I am an atypical Finn.

This year Mustafa has realised that even the winter darkness can offer some common ground for people of Middle-Eastern and Finnish origins.

– The darkness has felt heavier and more oppressive than ever before. On the other hand, now I am able to share the experience with other Finns: Ah, so this is what it’s like.

Mustafa also looks to arouse emotions with his art.

– I don’t want to force viewers to accept ready-made solutions or to think like I do. I want to ponder, provoke ideas, create connections and awaken feelings.

And what of his plans for the future?

– I have a lot. I am currently applying for Master’s studies. After that I’m hoping for a PhD and possibly to teach at a university or university of applied sciences. In the theatre world, I will work more actively and strive for larger stages.

Translating Hungarian tango requires specialist expertise

Text: Antti Kivimäki
Photos: Heikki Tuuli

“I have always enjoyed so-called difficult literature, which bestows an active role upon the reader,” explains Finnish translator Minnamari Pitkänen.

Pitkänen’s translation into Finnish of the Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai’s debut novel Sátántangó (Saatanatango, Teos, 2019), has been praised by critics. Demokraatti magazine called it the “translation highlight of the year”. Helsingin Sanomat newspaper applauded Pitkänen’s “naturalness in overcoming coarse slang, geological grammar avalanches and everything in between.”

Suomen Kuvalehti magazine described the Finnish translation as a work of art in itself: “The Finnish language does not lend itself with ease to the forms of exhausting modernism. Pitkänen brings it off brilliantly.”

“The novel is complex on both a linguistic and a thought level. The end result is beautiful.”

Sátántangó depicts the bewildered and confused inhabitants of a Hungarian backwater during the period of real socialism, whose hopes for change are quashed. Each chapter is a single, seemingly endless paragraph. In part one of the book, the chapters are numbered from one to six, and in part two from six to one, with everything returning to its point of origin. One of the novel’s translators into English, George Szirtes, has described Krasznahorkai’s style as “a slow lava flow of narrative, a vast black river of type”.

Kääntäjä Minnamari Pitkänen

It took Pitkänen two and a half years of working half-time.

“The novel is complex on both a linguistic and a thought level. The end result is beautiful. The characters ponder some of the most fundamental existential questions,” Pitkänen explains. 

“Unlike some of Krasznahorkai’s later works, the river of text in Sátántangó offers some stepping stones upon which to rest. Occasionally he shifts to a more traditional form of narration and something concrete happens in the story. It allows the reader’s brain to take a breather before being wrenched once again into the corkscrew of the subconscious.”

For Pitkänen, the translation process was tough but enjoyable. Often she would translate just one sentence at a time, after which a break was required. Even that was not always possible, with the novel’s sentences sometimes running for as long as a whole page. Krasznahorkai uses a lot of unusual words and expressions, as well as complicated grammatical structures.

“The text’s structure is insane,” Pitkänen says.

“Discomfort is an important part of the work. The reader is not supposed to be at ease in its trap. The prized content can be unlocked through active work, and the translator must not deprive the reader of that effort.”

Pitkänen started studying in the Department of Finnish, Finno-Ugrian and Scandinavian Studies of the University of Helsinki in 2005, specialising in Hungarian. Since then she has spent several long periods living in Hungary.

Pitkänen was attracted by Krasznahorkai’s style and wanted to take on the translation of Sátántangó. She translated samples of the novel in 2017 and sent them off to several publishers.

“To receive a message from an influential institution that they believe in you and support you, is enormously encouraging.”

Her first choice was the Baabel series of world literature that has not previously been translated into Finnish, and Pitkänen succeeded in making a deal with its publishers, Teos, in 2019. She started applying for grants in 2017, and succeeded in obtaining a six-month grant from the Finnish Cultural Foundation.

“It was hugely significant, and not just financially. Translators, particularly those working on their first extensive works, can feel very much alone in the world. I almost lost faith on many occasions. To then receive a message from an influential institution that they believe in you and support you, is enormously encouraging.”

In total, Pitkänen spent around two and a half years working half-time on the translation. She has agreed to translate more Krasznahorkai for Teos, and negotiations are currently ongoing on the next title to tackle.

Last year, the English translation of Krasznahorkai’s novel Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming won the esteemed American National Book Award for Translated Literature. The choice was closely followed in Finland because the shortlist included the novel Crossing by Pajtim Statovci from Finland.