Every now again there is a public debate about the role and duty of the arts. This is a good thing and the subject should be discussed even more often, believes curator Eva Neklyaeva, who likes to experiment with her work to find out what effect art can have on the community, culture, politics, and peoples’ lives.

She is especially curious about forming a meaningful connection between art and the audience. Due to the COVID pandemic, this connection has been broken for almost one and half years, which has jeopardised the income of many artists, and made Neklyaeva come up with new types of solutions to the difficult situation.

“If we make space for art, then we as a society take a stand in what we believe in.”

– My curatorial thinking starts with a need, and all performing artists that I know have been left without work and opportunities to meet with an audience. We need new and different forms of art, says the former director of the Santarcangelo Festival, Baltic Circle Festival, and the non-profit Checkpoint Helsinki art organisation.

What Neklyaeva is most concerned about is that art and culture are not considered basic services. For her it is difficult to understand why shops are allowed to stay open but museums are forced to keep their doors shut.

– Human relations, love, and nature bring meaning to our lives, and art and culture are definitely on that list. These things cannot be defined by their financial value but if we make space for art, then we as a society take a stand on what we believe in, Neklyaeva says.

The need for new art forms is permanent

The solution to an exceptional situation was eventually formed with two colleagues,Lisa Gilardino and Marco Cendroni. The trio invited artists that they had worked with before to create a way to pack a performance in a box, and then post it to the audience.

The project was named Samara Editions, which refers to a double-winged fruit of a maple tree, which floats from the tree to the ground with the wind. The first show was produced with Italian choreographer Chiara Bersani but Neklyaeva doesn’t want to talk about its content too much – a big part of the charm is the excitement of the unpacking experience.

– In her performance Chiara talks about how there are a lot of heavy things going on right now, and we have very little opportunity to process the feelings caused by these events. We cannot even take part in events like funerals and weddings that normally allow us to feel sadness or joy. She intends to give the audience instruments that can be used to create new types of rituals at home, says Neklyaeva.

The Samara Editions artworks can be purchased online and almost 700 boxes have been sent all over the world already. The project was also shown to the audience of the Oslo International Theatre Festival, and it will be part of the Spring Festival in Utrecht, in The Netherlands, in May. The next part of the series is currently under construction with the Finnish artist Jenna Sutela.

Even though the concept was born in the middle of the COVID crisis, Neklyaeva hopes that it doesn’t stop there. She says that the need for new art forms is permanent. It is not possible for everyone – for financial or other reasons – to fly to Europe to go on a tour, and even if they could, it wouldn’t be sustainable. For the artists involved the project provides an opportunity to examine their works from a new perspective.

– I hope that there would be more space for experimenting and playfulness in general, and that art wouldn’t be an exceptional experience but a part of everyday life, Neklyaeva says.

Curator Eva Neklyaeva received a 15 000 euros grant in 2021 for her Softshell project that sends art into people’s homes.

Text and photos: Laura Iisalo

The on-going year has been unusual in many ways, and the exceptional circumstances have affected Miikka Vaskola‘s daily life too. Some of his planned exhibitions were pushed back from this year to January 2021, and the artist, who usually works in Helsinki’s Lauttasaari, relocated his studio to the outer archipelago in Tammisaari to put together his solo exhibition at the Helsinki Contemporary.

The name of the exhibition, Shore to Shore, refers to the many boat journeys Vaskola has taken during the spring and summer. It also indicates the way light travels from space and reaches the eye of the spectator, moving from shore to shore.

Some of the new large-scale artworks are screen paintings, which Vaskola has painted directly on window screens so that the surface becomes visible while the painting behind it remains shielded.

“First they are these little maggots, and when they hatch, something else comes out of the cocoon than what originally went in.”

For this exhibition Vaskola has created sculptures for the first time ever. Made of plaster, fallen wood and epoxy, the organic shapes form a collection titled Instar, which refers to a developmental stage of arthropods.

– First they are these little maggots, and when they hatch, something else comes out of the cocoon than what originally went in. It is an interesting concept that resembles the way artists reinvent themselves, or do something different to what they have previously done, Vaskola explains.

All and nothing

The best thing about art, according to Vaskola, is that it can be anything. Art can take a societal stance – or not. For Vaskola art is a way to process and work on things and ideas through trial and error. He is fascinated by the idea that something can be all and nothing, both at the same time.

– Art has no purpose at all, and on the other hand it has a lot of purpose. Time is another concept that is everywhere and nowhere. People do everything they can to control it but at the same time time doesn’t exist. I’m interested in the moment in between the past and the future, and how that takes form. Or if there is no time, it doesn’t take any form, he says.

Vaskola prefers to work during evenings and night-time, when the city around him quiets down. Completing one piece of art takes around one and half years. The biggest challenge, according to Vaskola, is how to transfer a thought from his head to the canvas. Even if he has a clear idea of what he wants to do, the end-result is always something else. When he makes a mistake, he washes it away and keeps going.

– I started doing that when I was still a student and couldn’t afford to buy new canvases all the time. Not everything goes perfectly right away, at least not for me because I work on one piece for such a long time. The time spent working becomes evident and I like seeing how the painting gradually turns out, he tells.

The artworks speak for themselves

Helsinki Contemporary art gallery has represented Vaskola for years. For him the collaboration means added accountability but he also feels more at peace to create art.

– A good thing about working with a gallery is that I get help with curating, and that we can have a dialogue. It helps a lot as I work by myself – especially if I feel that what I’m doing isn’t enough. It is good to have someone who has the courage to say that this is not enough. Then we discuss why that is, and it is easier to move forward, Vaskola tells.

“When the exhibition is hung and complete, I see a lot of things that I hadn’t noticed before.”

Seeing the final hanging can be an eye-opening experience that embodies years of work. Yet Vaskola feels that talking about the artworks never gets easier.    

– I work so intensely that I find it difficult to see the artworks clearly, and it feels impossible to verbalize years of working. When the exhibition is hung and complete, I see a lot of things that I hadn’t noticed before. I can experience quite cool moments when I see that yeah, that one turned out quite good.

Artist Miikka Vaskola received a grant of 26 000 euros in 2020 for artistic work.

– The pandemic has hit organisations active in the cultural and events sector particularly hard, and support is needed. The Cultural Foundation for their part is looking to help high-quality art organisations around Finland to withstand the pandemic and remain operational during the period of uncertainty, explains Jari Sokka, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation.

The additional grants will be distributed in even ten-thousand-euro sums between 20.000 – 50.000 euros. The grants can be used, for example, to pay salaries or to cover the rental expenses of rehearsal spaces. The grant decisions will be announced to applicants in mid-December and the additional grants paid out within the current calendar year, unlike other grants in the October round of applications.

This March already, the Finnish Cultural Foundation provided half a million euros as emergency aid through the Arts Promotion Centre Finland Taike to assist arts and culture professionals adversely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. At that time, the combined funding of Taike, the Ministry of Education and Culture, and a number of Finnish Foundations reached 1,5 million euros. In addition, this spring, the Cultural Foundation through its regional funds distributed a further half a million euros of additional coronavirus funding.

In 2021, the Cultural Foundation will award a total of at least 43 million euros in grants, of which about 26 million euros in the Central Fund October round of applications and 13 million in the regional fund January round. The rest will be awarded e.g. through pools and in the Foundation’s March and August rounds. Including the Art Testers and other projects, the total funding of the Cultural Foundation to culture during the financial year will come up to about 50 million euros.

The Central Fund grant applications are open from 1 to 30 October 2020. Applications can be submitted at the Online Application Service which closes on the deadline date at 4 pm Finnish time (EET).

Guidelines for the million-euro additional funding to art organisations

The work, which appears traditional at first sight, has a particular fascination in the form of a hidden message that will slowly be revealed from beneath the painting’s layers. The effect is by no means immediate, however, because the text – written by Timo Viherkenttä himself – will not become readable for a few decades.

“I made my first hidden-message painting for a retrospective held in 2008 at Helsinki Art Museum,” explains Anne Koskinen. “At an exhibition last year at Galleria Anhava, I also showed portraits that change over time. I had no models sitting for those, they were painted from my imagination.”

Viherkenttä’s portrait was completed using old painting techniques, including the use of genuine gold and silver. “They accentuate light and shadows. Gold and silver appeared in fine art already in the Renaissance. They were used in drawing and priming before the invention of the pencil; Leonardo da Vinci’s brown-toned drawings are actually oxidised silver.”

Originally trained as a painter, Koskinen has recently worked mostly on sculpture. In summer 2018 she showed works on the female figure in Kultaranta (the summer residence of the President of Finland). The portrait of Timo Viherkenttä is the first modelled work she has done in a long time. “It is titled Revelation – Timo Viherkenttä, and whether the revelation refers to an apparition or an unveiling will become evident in several years’ time,” Koskinen says, smiling. It may also lead to a whole series of new revelation-themed works. “I have become newly inspired by painting after all the sculpture,” Koskinen says. She is now looking forward to a few months of working in New York on a grant from the Cultural Foundation.     

For Timo Viherkenttä, having his portrait painted was an interesting, and at the same time exciting, journey both forward and back in time. “I think that the idea that the speech bubble hidden in the painting might not be revealed for decades befits the Cultural Foundation’s long-term vision. Not everything is in the here and now: the Foundation also exists for the future,” Viherkenttä explains. As for the content of the message, no amount of inquisitive questioning will get him to reveal it. All we can say is that it is a testament of sorts for future generations. That is also very much in the spirit of the Foundation.   

Text: Marika Aspila
Photograph: Heikki Tuuli