Meri Toivanen, originally from Kajaani in Finland, has lived in Belgium for the past six years.
Finnish cultural history is a recurring theme in Meri Toivanen‘s paintings. She reinterprets imagery from Finnish post-war films through metaphors found in the gaming world.
The visual artist, originally from Kajaani in Finland, has lived in Belgium for the past six years. Toivanen feels that being away from her homeland has increased her interest in it.
“This new context has made me research my family’s history and Finland’s cultural history through films. Both have connections to the threat and uncertainty of the Winter War, which feels current again because of the war in Ukraine,” she says.
The 27-year-old Toivanen graduated two years ago with a master’s degree in painting from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. It is where the great Finnish artist Albert Edelfelt studied history painting in the late 19th century with the support of a state scholarship.
Soon after graduating, Toivanen was offered a part-time position to teach figure drawing at the academy. At the same time, Toivanen is building her career as a visual artist.
So far, opportunities have been many. Toivanen has participated in duo and group exhibitions in Luxembourg, Belgium, Finland, and Denmark. However, she acknowledges the challenges many artists experience at the early stages of their careers.
“The biggest fear for many young artists is the void following graduation. I had quite a good continuity; I built my network during my studies and held exhibitions. For me it was quite easy, but it has been challenging too trying to find my place in a new city,” Toivanen says.
Residency provides new opportunities
For the time being, Toivanen plans to stay in Antwerp. She enjoys the city’s diverse art scene, and feels that a degree in fine art is highly valued.
At the beginning of next year, Toivanen will take the next step in her career by starting a five-month residency at MORPHO in Antwerp, enabled by the Cultural Foundation’s Residency Programme.
Toivanen managed to build networks during her studies and held exhibitions already in the beginning of her career.
During this time Toivanen plans to work on a project titled Let the Sleeping Dogs Lie, where she explores the concept of power through metaphors and symbolism. At the end of the residency, Toivanen intends to hold her first solo exhibition.
In addition to delving into her own work, Toivanen looks forward to encounters with local and international artists and curators, and visits to local museums and galleries included in the programme.
“Studying was a wonderful social time. I’ve dreamed of being able to go back to an environment where there is a community feel. It’s great that I get to connect with other artists again and see their creative processes. A new environment will surely spark new ideas too,” she says.
Final outcome surprises
While in the residency, Toivanen wants to explore new working techniques too. She does not use an easel but often works on the floor, aiming to complete a painting in one sitting.
The paints Toivanen uses are often very fluid, which causes them to move and spread across the painting’s surface, making the final result hard to control.
“I have the right to fail when I paint, and during my studies I learned not to be attached to the outcome. The painting is done in one layer, and if I am not happy with it, I can just wipe everything off and start again. Painting doesn’t always succeed, which is also interesting,” she says.
In addition to oil paints, Toivanen uses self-made pastels, ink, gouache, and watercolours. During the residency, she also plans to create figurative sculptures. Ceramics is a new medium for Toivanen, who has explored its qualities during summers spent in Kajaani.
For her, one of the hardest things is knowing when a work is finished.
“As a student I was required to produce a lot at a fast pace. After graduation, I’ve had my own peace and space to work, and I haven’t felt the pressure to finish what I do within a certain time. Now I have the freedom to focus on the process in the moment, and that is the most important thing.”
Working alone is Jarkko Partanen‘s nightmare. Having discovered the world of dance when he was a teenage, Partanen realized early on that he specifically wants to collaborate with others.
He gained his bachelor’s degree in London, and later completed his master’s studies at the University of the Arts Helsinki’s Theatre Academy. Partanen quickly understood that he preferred creating performances rather than performing in them, and so he became a choreographer.
“It was liberating to realize that I don’t have to be a dancer. On the other hand, as a choreographer, I don’t have any particular practice that I want to develop from one production to another. If I had to work alone, and plan my own future projects by myself, my career would have ended a long time ago,” he says.
Creative commitment
Eight years ago Partanen co-founded the Wauhaus collective with four other artists. The group had previously worked together in various configurations and discovered that naming the productions after the director or choreographer did not reflect their way of working.
By committing to a mutual artistic future and its development, Wauhaus aims to create institutional structures that support their long-term and multidisciplinary work within the art field. This means building fulfilling partnerships and international relationships, and continuously developing their ways of working.
Partanen admits that teamwork is not always straight forward, and sometimes things don’t go as planned. Nevertheless, the mutual journey continues.
“The richness of working together is that no one knows for sure what the final outcome will be”, says Partanen. Photo: Laura Iisalo
“Art is difficult, creating performances is incredibly hard, and the work never gets easier. However, individual ideas become much better when they have been scrutinised, criticized, crafted, challenged, and deconstructed together from different perspectives. Ultimately, we arrive at something none of us could have imagined at the beginning. That is the beauty of working together,” Partanen says.
Internationality is a necessity
Wauhaus is based in Helsinki but tours globally. The Fluids performance, for example, premiered in Tallinn six years ago, and is still being performed in various countries. Partanen thinks internationality is a necessity in the field.
“Productions take many years to create. In terms of the lifecycle of the works, it feels completely unsustainable to show them only in Finland, where performance opportunities and contexts are limited,” he says.
The themes, compositions, proportions, and implementation methods of the Wauhaus productions vary. The collective has showcased their pieces on the main stage of the National Theatre, at the Helsinki Biennial, and in small Black Box theaters.
What ties the pieces together is their strong audiovisual and spatial thinking. The role and position of performers on stage have been collectively questioned, and Partanen has created choreographies not just for humans but also for robot dogs and excavators.
“Although we are a collective, people have different professional roles, educational backgrounds, and perspectives. We have learned that our strength lies in doing diverse things. When we get excited about an idea, we tend to dive deep into the theme, and suddenly I’m choreographing excavators,” he says.
Residency concretizes ideas
The Wauhaus collective prepares for their forthcoming show during a residency in Tallinn. Photo: Sofia Okkonen
In August, the Wauhaus team will head to the Kanuti Gildi Saal in Tallinn for two weeks, made possible by the Cultural Foundation’s residency program. In addition to Partanen, director Juni Klein, sound designer Jussi Matikainen, scenographer Laura Haapakangas, and seven visiting designers and performers will participate in the residency.
The group is already familiar with Kanuti Gildi Saal. They stayed in the residency ten years ago and created the Dirty Dancing performance, which Partanen considers the starting point of Wauhaus. This time, they will work on their forthcoming Renaissance piece, which premieres in Helsinki this December.
The five-performer performance is co-produced by the Helsinki-based Zodiak – Centre for new Dance, and it explores the themes of re-enchantment and transformation through mythical bodies that turn fantasies into flesh.
For now, the piece is in the early stages of planning. The residency period allows for the ideas to be taken from the drawing board to the stage, and for the group to be immersed in the world of the upcoming work.
The performance can go in many directions, and no one knows for sure what the final outcome will be. That’s the richness of working together, says Partanen.
“Working with others brings a diverse perspective, which is important and enjoyable for my own artistry as well.”
Debut author Ivanda Jansone‘s creative path has been full of incidents.
She felt a pull towards art already in her childhood, but the uncertainty associated with being an artist made her hesitate. Instead, she decided to be rational and study graphic design, and later furniture design, but the idea of making art never left her alone.
In 2018 by chance, Jansone took part in a comic course at the Aalto University’s open university, taught by the renowned artist Matti Hagelberg. The experience opened up a view to the world of comic art, and got Jansone back to drawing.
Then the pandemic struck, and Jansone was laid off from her graphic designer job.
“Getting fired crushed my ego, and everything came to a halt. I heard my own voice for the first time and understood who I am, and what I want. Comics were the only thing that interested me at that moment. I decided to focus on making art and see where the path takes me”, she says.
Captivating debut
Jansone’s debut book, Mustavalkoinen mestariteos (Black and White Masterpiece), was released last year. The book got a raving review in the main Finnish newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, which brought it to the public’s attention and made it one of the most reserved books in the library.
It came as a complete surprise to Jansone.
“The work was very personal. It was about exploring myself, art, and new techniques. I didn’t expect or even think about getting reviews. The feedback felt nice though, and it gave me confidence in my work, and trust that I am on the right path”, she says.
The vibe in Jansone’s illustrations is surreal, a result of her playing with many levels of reality and observations. Wordless comics that rely solely on images are her favourites. She prefers leaving the story open in order to allow the reader participate in its narration.
“Working on comics requires a lot of planning, and I like planning. It is interesting to build an ambience and environment for a story out of nothing. I’m also interested in time. If a single image, painting, or a photograph captures a moment, in comics the moment is continuous”, Jansone says.
Residency brought back memories
Jansone, who moved from Latvia to Finland in 2008, has started working on her next comic book, which explores memories and secrets stemming from her childhood in the former Soviet Union.
Old Soviet-era objects, such as a vinyl player, animal masks made of paper mache, an orange jug, an old alarm clock, and a little Cheburashka toy, become images and stories in Jansone’s hands.
Last autumn, Jansone spent two months working at the NART residency in Narva, supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation. The Estonian city is located a stone’s throw away from the Russian border, and it’s stagnant atmosphere suited the theme of her on-going project.
While in the residency, Jansone was expecting her first child, which helped bring back even more memories of her own childhood.
“The time I spent in Narva was very emotional. I turned inward because I felt the need to spend a lot of time by myself. It was wonderful to delve deep into the past and relive the memories of my childhood. Being in the old, quiet residency building in the evenings when all the doors were shut made me feel like I was in a movie set”, Jansone says.
New forms of comics
Jansone is currently on parental leave but new ideas for art and comics are already brewing in her mind. In the near future, Jansone plans to complete the book she started at the NART residency, and graduate from the Uniarts Helsinki’s Academy of Fine Arts with a master’s degree.
Printmaking, and especially gravure printing, is the next natural step for Jansone, who wants to bring her comics to a larger scale, and take them to new environments, such as gallery walls.
The vibe in Jansone’s illustrations is surreal, a result of her playing with many levels of reality and observations.
“There are many talented comic artists in Finland, and I wonder why comics remain at the subculture level, it can hard to even find them in bookstores. Also, comics can be more than books. I would like the interest in comics to start from a gallery”, she says.
Comic artist Ivanda Jansone received a residency grant in 2023. She worked for two months at NART Residency in Narva in the autumn of 2023.
A soprano voice playing from a record player fills the space. The sound is a conflicting blend of self-examination and justification of a grave robber’s remorse and shame. It belongs to Confession Piece for Voice, a sound installation created by artist Jonna Kina in collaboration with composer Lauri Supponen. The artwork was exhibited at Helsinki Contemporary in 2021, and it is now part of the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma’s collections.
Sound has always been the most important of all senses for Kina. She reflects on her works through sound even when they are silent.
“The capability of sound to directly affect our emotional register is ultimately a multisensory experience. That’s why sound is a natural element in visual arts, where silence is a typical characteristic of space. I am fascinated by how sound can operate on the boundaries of the emotional, intuitive, and conceptual, even the irrational”, Kina says.
Interpreter of new worlds
Kina feels most comfortable on the edge of something new. As an artist, she observes her surroundings, and creates new worlds based on her interpretations. In addition to sound, Kina uses moving image, installation, photography, sculpture, and language in her works. Not everything can be verbalized though—if it could, making art could become boring.
Sometimes Kina’s works arise from a compelling need. She might be haunted by something that calls for her attention. This was the case with the exhibition series about the grave robbers.
The story begun in Mazzano Romano in 2017. Kina attended an artist residency in the small Italian village, where she found a jar belonging to the Faliscan culture in a local archaeological museum. The ancient, grave-robbed object captivated the artist, who returned to look and photograph the jar again and again.
The object eventually became part of a video piece titled Red Impasto Jar, a moving portrait of the jar placed on top of an industrial motor, which, as it spins, reveals the fragile essence of the jar to the viewer.
“The story of the jar is unknown but it was intended for the afterlife. I had to make a piece out of it to break free from its spell. The jar made me wonder if it is right to present a culture or a language one does not know, or if the museum has the right to present an object that belongs to another person’s memory”, Kina says.
Mobility opens new doors
Last autumn, Kina spent three months at the Fabrikken residency in Copenhagen funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation. Kina, who earned a master’s degree from the Uniarts Helsinki’s Academy of Fine Arts, has also studied and worked in New York and Jerusalem. She says that the importance of mobility only comers clear when an opportunity to travel arises.
“A new environment activates the senses and generates new thoughts very differently from the familiar home environment. Through traveling comes a revelation that no one comes to Finland just passing by. Sometimes it can be long after the residency when I realize what I achieved, and how my work progressed”, she says.
According to Kina, establishing international contacts is one of the most important aspects of an artist residency. In Copenhagen, she met curator Nadim Samman, who invited Kina to participate in a group exhibition at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin this spring. Her piece Secret Words and Related Stories will be on display, and in March Kina will hold a reading performance.
Apart from meeting the curators, Kina finds exchanging ideas with fellow artists fascinating. During her time at Fabrikken, she was mentored by local contemporary artist Joachim Koester.
“Another artist understands the different stages of the process and work-related matters, such as materials and forms, at a microcosmic level. Exchanging technical advice is useful too”, she says.
Artistic Inventory
Last year, Kina’s career and personal life were full of meaningful events. She took part in three international museum exhibitions, a gallery exhibition, and also became a mother for the first time. After a busy period, Kina wants to take time to reflect her life, and to hold what she calls an artistic inventory.
“An artist is not a machine. I want to quiet down, and proceed slowly in order to have space for something new. Once in a while it’s important to get lost in order to suddenly find yourself in the middle of something interesting, and let it lead somewhere”, Kina says.
The current atmosphere has also led Kina to contemplate her work and art in relation to everything else. In a world filled with threats, the significance of art has become even more emphasized, she says.
“I want to remember to think of the good, and to approach things that touch me, but which the present society does not call for. Art is a channel through which all sorts of things can be addressed”, Kina concludes.
Artist Jonna Kina received a residency grant in 2023. She worked for three months at Fabrikken Residency in Denmark in the autumn of 2023.
The Cultural Foundation’s residency programme has expanded by three host sites from 2024 onwards, with the addition of Kanuti Gildi SAAL in Tallinn, MORPHO in Antwerp and SÍM in Reykjavík.The programme’s ten host sites are located across eight countries.
“The Finnish Cultural Foundation’s residency programme is seen as significant in the Nordic region as a whole, and we want to continue building upon it.Finnish art has always relied upon international mobility, and these days it is more important than ever to give artists opportunities to travel and network internationally,” says the Cultural Foundation’s CEO,Susanna Pettersson.
Since the pandemic, application volumes for artists’ residencies have been growing:while the foundation received 127 applications in 2021 and 176 in 2022, the number nearly doubled this year, reaching a record of 324 applications.
Fifteen artists to take up residencies in 2024
The residency programme allows artists from diverse fields to absorb new international influences, build networks and acquire new perspectives for their work.This year, Residency Grants will be awarded to 15 artists.
“A residency allows artists to develop in their work, network internationally, and temporarily distance themselves from their everyday lives. Many artists describe the impact of a residency as groundbreaking for their careers.In our new partnerships, we have paid particular attention to the support artists receive in their work,” explains senior adviser Johanna Ruohonen, who is in charge of the residency programme.
On the left Miia Kettunen, photo: Marko Junttila. On the right Pavel Rotts, photo: Marko Marin.
Miia Kettunen and Pavel Rotts will travel to the NART residency in Narva, Estonia, in 2024.Kettunen is a multidisciplinary visual artist, who focuses on environmental and community art.In her current works, she is exploring the use of components from environmental art, bioart, alternative photography techniques and media arts.
A Room of Absence 2, oil on steel, Tiina Pyykkinen, 2023. Photo: Sampo Linkoneva, Serlachius Museums.
Pavel Rotts uses diverse techniques within the ambits of conceptual art, performance and sculpture.An Ingrian Finn born in the Soviet Union, Rotts often uses his background as a starting point. When Russia began its military attack on Ukraine, he became an antiwar activist and was involved in setting up the NO PUTIN NO charity campaign, which supported Ukrainian refugees.
Tiina Pyykkinen is a Helsinki-based visual artist, whose mirror-surfaced paintings often deal with themes of memory, time and bodily perceptions.She is off to the Triangle residency in New York to work on a new series of paintings.
Artist Panos Balomenos (pictured above), who combines watercolour painting and performance in his work, will also be going to New York.Balomenos explores themes related to power relations, sexuality and politics through personal narration, historical events and fiction.
Recipients of Residency Grants in 2023:
Panos Balomenos, MA: Triangle, New York
Karolina Ginman, dancer, with team: Kanuti Gildi SAAL, Tallinn
Miia Kettunen, MA: NART, Narva
Aaro Murphy, visual artist, Tokyo Arts and Space, Tokyo
Elina Oikari, MA: Fabrikken, Copenhagen
Jarkko Partanen, choreographer, with team: Kanuti Gilda SAAL, Tallinn
Tiina Pyykkinen, MA: Triangle, New York
Hannu Pöppönen, cultural editor: Filba, Buenos Aires
Arto Rintala, MPhil: Filba, Buenos Aires
Pavel Rotts, MFA: NART, Narva
Maiju Suomi, Architect and Patrik Söderlund, artist, AIT, Tokyo
An interview by Athanasía Aarniosuo Photos provided by the artist
The residency period, originally awarded for 2019, was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, as many others during that time. Travelling, even two years later, was not easy and many changes to original plans were made. Due to Japan’s strict regulations, Emilia thought it safer to travel by plane rather than through land and sea.
The first months of the residency were rather solitary. Not many foreigners had taken the extra step to travel to Japan, and communication with the locals was challenging. Japanese people are generally not so confident in speaking English, Emilia found.
However, the overall experience was positive and fruitful in many ways, and after the first secluded period, more and more foreign artists started to arrive in Tokyo.
The Arts Initiative Tokyo Residency itself is a small, two-storey house that only accommodates one guest artist at a time. However, collaborations with other residency programs and visiting artists are arranged. Emilia was the first in a long time to visit.
Mr. Hidetoshi Hoshitani
The two-year wait influenced Emilia’s plans in regards to her work as well. While her subject matter and main research focus remained unchanged, a majority of her contacts were no longer useful. During the residency, Emilia wanted to explore the supernatural, and people’s experiences with ghosts and spirits; finding a whole new set of volunteers to interview was a part of the process.
She talked to locals who had seen ghosts in order to learn more about Japanese supernatural beliefs. The residency staff helped arrange a meeting with a clairvoyant, psychic, Mr. Hidetoshi Hoshitani, that a Japanese artist had collaborated with previously. Historically the Japanese have valued their spiritual experiences; however, Emilia found it rather challenging to engage the locals about their personal beliefs.
The forest of Aokihagara.
Emilia visited the forest of Aokihagara, Mount Fuji’s vast ‘Sea of Trees’, which is located a mere two-hour bus ride away from central Tokyo. The Mount Fuji area is a well-known tourist destination and the forest is visited by many because of the well known caves in this area. However, it is also home to ominous events: every year, many Japanese people go to the forest to take their own lives. A popular suicide spot, the stories of ghosts and haunting spirits existed before these more recent tragedies, but have increased with them.
Emilia has been interested in ghosts and the supernatural throughout her life, and has been working on this particular project for a few years already. The project is not limited to Japan, but she has photographed well-known haunted areas around the world, while also interviewing people about their relationship with the supernatural and their personal ghostly encounters. The project has taken her, among other places, to England and Scotland, where the cultural history encourages ghost stories; every village has them! Next, the project will take her to Romania, where stories of the spiritual world are plenty. The photographs she takes are mostly of outdoors spaces, forests particularly; not so much haunted houses or castles.
Emilia is interested not only in the haunted stories themselves, but also the history behind them: how do they get formed and where do people go to experience the supernatural? The photographs and related interviews have not been exhibited publicly yet, but Emilia is in the process of compiling them into a book.
Alongside her main project, Emilia also took a trip to Hiroshima to photograph some old trees as part of another larger body of work, through which she takes portraits, in a way, of trees that have witnessed major world events and personal tragedies. This project is also ongoing.
Emilia’s time in Japan, in the end, did not differ too much from how she usually works: she travels to a place of interest, photographs it, then continues working from her laptop at home. However, it did come with many new ideas and revelations.
An interview by Mauri Aarniosuo Photo provided by the artist
Poet Tommi Parkko finds that working in residencies suits him well.
I interviewed poet Tommi Parkko, born in 1969, in Finnish, through a remote connection. When he is not working in residencies, Parkko lives in Turku. So far, he has published four poetry collections, in addition to nonfiction books on poetry. Parkko is also an editor in his own publishing house Kustannusliike Parkko that publishes poetry translated into Finnish. He has also taught writing in several educational institutions. But poetry, Parkko emphasizes, comes first. He has worked in several positions related to the culture field for thirty years, but his “big vision” is to promote poetry.
Parkko tells me residencies are a central part of his life and that working in residencies suits him well. He finds it easier to focus on long-term planning and projects especially abroad when social obligations get less in the way. Personally, he generally feels most comfortable working in narrowly structured residencies, but he emphasizes that all different types of residencies are needed. Writers should also have more residency options: for example residencies in New York, or more remote ones, such as the solitary Örö island that Parkko remembers fondly. As a writer, he feels he doesn’t require much: a laptop, some books, a desk, a bed, and food.
Parkko applied to Filba residency in Buenos Aires in 2020, and he was notified of his selection in November 2020. Originally, the accommodation was supposed to be in a culture center, but COVID-19 delayed the residency and altered the plans. Parkko’s romantic plan was also to travel by cargo ship in the manner of Olavi Paavolainen’s travel book Lähtö ja loitsu, but this did not work out either. Finally, the residency took place between August and November 2022, and Parkko was accommodated in an Airbnb flat in Buenos Aires’s Palermo Hollywood area.
Parkko was happy to go to Argentina where he had never been before, to also get acquainted with the local poetry. One of his publishing house’s next year’s publications will be a Finnish translation of Alejanda Pizarnik’s poems. Pizarnik was from Buenos Aires, which is another reason Parkko was interested in the city – to get a sense of the circumstances where the poet came from.
Palermo Hollywood is a part of the Palermo neighborhood with a lot of restaurants and books stores. It is not the richests nor the poorest part of Buenos Aires, Parkko explains. Though, he does not consider his current scenery central to his work. “I do what I do, basically anywhere,” Parkko says. In general, he feels that traveling and limiting his amenities keeps his mind active, but he did not, for example, write poems focusing on Buenos Aires in any obvious way while there. Parkko paid attention to the major inflation in Argentina which made him feel rich during the residency, while being a low-income cultural worker, and also a little bad for “colonizing the country,” as he puts it. “The prize of a pizza is three euros,” he explains.
Filba Foundation, which arranged Parkko’s residency, also organizes Filba International Literature Festival, held in Buenos Aires and Montevideo simultaneously. Parkko compliments the organizers for taking good care of him. He was always able to reach an English speaking contact person for help, and the organizers met him occasionally to ask him whether everything was going well. He feels that cooperation with the Finnish Cultural Foundation also ran smoothly.
There were some minor disturbances to his focused work, however, due to external circumstances. For one, the timing of the residency, which had changed because of the pandemic, was a little off. Parkko’s responsibilities related to the publishing house would have required him to be in Finland at the time, and this caused additional difficulties. Another problem was that the airlines lost his suitcase in which he had his personal belongings and books. As a result, Parkko had only a few things with him in the residency, which also affected his work, as he could not use all of the books that he intended to. He got the suitcase back three months later at the airport.
The cooperation with Filba included participating in the literature festival. Parkko was expected to create a text for the festival, and, at Filba’s suggestion, he went to see a football match for the first time in his life, accompanied by a local writer. Laughing, Parkko tells me that he didn’t even know who was playing and who won. During the match, he talked to the other writer with whom he also performed later at the festival but, even so, he managed to write a few poems about the football event in the end. His participation at the football event was the only structured program that was organized for Parkko during the residency, and this suited him well.
Parkko had several plans for the residency concerning his own poetry collections and other work. He hosted a seminar on creative writing through Zoom and worked on his book about slow traveling in Europe, but this project did not progress as much as he had initially planned. By coincidence, translator Aki Salmela, who is an associate of Parkko, happened to be at the same place at the same time, which was lucky, as they could, thus, easily work together on editing a translation of Jeet Thayil’s poetry in cafes and bars. Parkko also worked on translations of Ingeborg Bachmann, Mark Strand, Elo Viiding, Rami Saari, and Ilya Kaminsky, whose book will be published in Finnish during summer 2023. Parkko also used a lot of time planning his publishing house’s future activities, financing and marketing. A completely new idea was born, too: a plan to publish an anthology of contemporary Argentinian poetry in Finnish, in perhaps five years or so. So far, Argentinian poetry has not been very widely translated into Finnish, and Parkko and his associates wish to diversify the picture of Argentinian poetry in Finland. The translator is already known, and a specific Argentinian journalist will possibly help with selecting the poetry.
During the residency, Parkko also continued working on two of his own poetry collections, one of which is yet in such an early stage that its details are not ready to be shared. The more current collection that goes by the working title Maanpako (exile), on the other hand, is well under way. Parkko tells me that the book is centered around the concept of ostracism. The term comes from Ancient Greece where people’s assemblies had a custom of evicting democratically chosen people from Athens. No proper justification for the eviction was required. Nowadays, the term ‘ostracism’ is extended to social shunning more broadly, and Parkko mentions bullying at school as another example. “What are the consequences when a person is socially isolated?” is a question Parkko wishes to address in his book.
Parkko considers himself first and foremost as a poet. His work has been inspired by historical and mythological references. “I am perhaps not one of the most experimental poets,” he describes himself and sees his poetry as deriving from the tradition of modernism – though, with a more contemporary approach. Parkko emphasizes that he creates collections of works, not really singular poems, and does not even attempt to publish at a quick pace. In the past, he has published collections of poems about once every seven years. He is a slow perfectionist when it comes to his poetry which is not driven by financial interests. He makes a living from his other work.
Yle recently raised the question “Is Finnish poetry dying?” in the Kulttuuricocktail Live program. Parkko finds this discussion amateurish. “After all, poetry is currently both quantitatively and qualitatively more versatile than ever during Finland’s history of literature,” he declares. Parkko is passionate about promoting poetry and has written six nonfiction books on poetry, on writing poetry, and on reading poetry. He notices how especially young readers have been recently drawn into the format of a verse novel where long narratives are told using the medium of poetry; even prosaists have been attracted by the way in which poetry allows the writer to get directly to the point. Contrasting his thoughts to the famous quote by philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, Parkko proclaims that “the poet’s task is to talk about things for which there are no words, to sort of expand the world’s limits.” He emphasizes, though, that while this may sound pompous, it is completely possible and a mundane phenomenon. For example, new words are created constantly. “The world changes through language.”
An interview by Athanasía Aarniosuo Photos provided by the artist
AA: You spent several months at Triangle in New York. Had you immersed yourself in New York before or was it a new environment for you? Was it easy to form a relationship with the city?
IR: No, I had never been to America at all! In some ways it was easy to connect, but it took me a long time to settle into a rhythm, after getting so used to the slowness and ease of Helsinki. I had some kind of relationship to the city from afar, like many of us do I suppose, full of fantasies about sauntering around and being super awake to the world around me, which did happen sometimes but I don’t know if that can be a full-time state. It was kind of difficult to match the reality to my expectations, in fantasies you aren’t tired, or shy, or lost, or broke, or uninspired. I definitely felt this pressure to constantly be ‘out there’, both from myself and from the pace of life there in general.
This was my first time also being granted such a residency, so I also felt some pressure to maximise my time because I was afforded this enormous opportunity, and so to do anything other than be super productive would be… disrespectful? Wasteful? That’s a very mercenary way to view time (and artistic practice) and isn’t really my personal belief, but I think the city brought up something in me that’s usually just simmering away in the background, and isn’t so present in Helsinki.
Rape revenge studio notes.
Sometimes I forget how much creative work alternates between periods of going inwards and then periods of going outwards. This time I found myself hovering between the two, which was a strange space to be in.
So I tried to adjust my expectations based on my capacity, and to rethink what my relationship to the city could be, as well as what a ‘successful’ residency period is. I could have happily spent the whole three months just riding the bus around, letting things come and go, thinking, and being content. But even with the things I found challenging I’m ready to go back!
AA: What did you bring back from New York? Have any ideas, first conceived at Triangle, developed into finished works or exhibitions?
IR: Yes! I had proposed to work on one project about Rape Revenge cinema, but because of covid rescheduling my residency period twice I ended up working on several different things at once.
It was challenging to work on this Rape Revenge project in the context of a residency where there’s a lot contact and meetings etc, I had to introduce the project and the context multiple times, which is normal, but because of the personal nature of the project I felt myself having to detach a bit in order to move in and out of that space. I hadn’t considered that aspect of a project like this at a residency like Triangle, which is perhaps good to know, all my previous residencies were much more solitary. This project is (still) a work in progress, but I got some good insight and support about the ways in which I can develop it further, which has been ticking away in the back of my mind while I’ve been working on other things.
I attended a few poetry classes which were super generative and exciting. I drafted some poems more related to the experience of being in America, or what being there brought up for me, like the swirl of new places and old memories that travelling brings, one of which was published in Propel Magazine recently. It was really nice to have a specific forum to reflect on the experience of being in New York, considering that wasn’t a part of my art projects.
And then I ended up needing to work a great deal on another in-progress video work An Uncountable Number of Threads which was due to be exhibited in Lappeenranta Taidemuseo a month after I returned.
Still from An Uncountable Number of Threads (2023).
The work is a sort of travel film, or a video work about travel films, that questions itself. It’s made from footage I shot while travelling on group excursions with HIAP’s Connecting Points project, facilitated by Arttu Merimaa and Miina Hujala. In the work I was trying to engage with the ethical restrictions of a travelogue, while working with the material I gathered travelling. It was quite strange to revisit this work in America, tapping into this feeling of being an outsider, and of being small that I felt in both places, countries that are both huge and imperialist, with too many strange echoes to list here. And even though finishing off this piece at Triangle wasn’t what I intended, in the end the location really contributed to my thinking and writing for the project. Hopefully I will show this video in Helsinki soon too. Which leads nicely into your next question!
Still from An Uncountable Number of Threads (2023).
AA: You have, in your previous work, made travel films and tried to share your connections to places. The results are often very intimate and gentle. Do you feel that the places you are describing are collaborators in your practice?
IR: Thank you! Hmm perhaps I’m more at the other end of the spectrum, a bit suspicious of myself, often I feel more like I’m co-opting a place against its will, I feel nervous and aware of making sure it’s obvious that I’m filtering everything through me rather than trying to ‘be objective’ about a place, or define it. I feel like this lack of neutrality has to be a part of my works, at least at this stage in my practice.
Somehow in writing it feels a bit easier to work with places than in video. Perhaps it’s that writing feels more indirect, or closer to me, or just that there’s not the whole issue of the camera being involved. But I imagine when working with a place that you are from or that you live in for a longer time it feels more collaborative, like working with a friend, or a family member you feel indifferent to, but most of the time for me I feel like a guest.
The way being elsewhere changes time interests me too, I think some of the best poems I have written have been while away somewhere, I guess I enjoy how the newness of a context can interweave with all the baggage you bring with you, and how new things prompt you to regard your own things in a surprising way. Now I’m thinking of places as like a therapist or analyst rather than a collaborator hmm…
But I would be very interested to think more about ‘tourism’ in future projects, and to not try to maintain this distance between a ‘travelling artist’ and a tourist, as we rely so much on the same structures and industries. I began to scratch at this in ‘An Uncountable Number of Threads’ but there’s much more to get into. In my family my parents spent their pre-parent years travelling around together for long periods of time on a shoestring, and it is a big part of their identity, perhaps even one of the biggest parts. I have felt critical of this over the years, but as I age I feel more able to step back and be curious about what that means for them and people like them.
AA: In your work, how do your words and images meet?
IR: Hmm tricky! It’s something I do so unthinkingly, or rather what comes most naturally to me. When I was younger I used to draw primarily, all images and text mixed together. At some point in my arts education this got ironed out of me, but my compulsion to always pair some kind of image with text stayed.
If I sit down to make something specific, usually words (language, phrases, voice, song) come first, images I collect as I travel around or remember to bring my camera out but I would like to become more intentional and consistent with this, and someday have a footage archive that I can pull from often.
Still from An Uncountable Number of Threads (2023).
In general I don’t find myself to be a very image-oriented person, in how I think or how I imagine, even if my writing depends a lot on images. I have a hard time making an image just for the sake of it, which is sad, and I think when I’m shooting out and about I’m attracted to the feeling of the place mostly. But yeah I really think this is something that my BA in the UK affected, and how arts education there seemed to discourage this urge to make for pleasure or to just follow the thread of an interest. I got this impression that everything needs to have a reason from the very first moment, and that meaning can only come from that. I don’t agree with this and would really like to shed this idea but it takes time. Probably I rely so heavily on words because of this, and I learnt to shape and affect meaning and feeling in writing in a way that never felt so fluent in image.
Writing on the roof and waiting for moonrise in NYC.
Sometimes it feels like a hard thing to reconcile with when I want to make moving image, how to not make the visual an afterthought, or is it ok for the image to be subservient to the other elements? Anyway they inform each other, in mood, in atmosphere, and I hope that in the things I make now the image and the text help each other to unfold.
AA: Some of your past works have a very sensitive, almost quiet way of addressing memory, personal experiences and the need to share them with others. Do you feel that there is a relationship between nostalgia and connecting?
IR: I find nostalgia as a quality or tactic very interesting and often alluring, but I’m also wary, considering the ways we see it weaponised at this moment in time. It’s curious to me how nostalgia relies on its relationship to history, but is not really rooted in the past, and often has such a narrow perspective. Of course personal nostalgia is different from cultural nostalgia but in either case, it needs to be detached from its origin somehow. So the relationship between nostalgia and connection seems to me like a sort of shortcut to feeling.
In the project I worked on with Connecting Points, where we made excursions across Russia and Eastern Finland, nostalgia became something I used as an access point into cultures and countries that I am ignorant of and can never deeply know. Engaging with the nostalgic elements of a culture, e.g. music, style, cartoon characters, movies, kitsch etc. feels possible, because there’s so much one can recognise from one’s own individual world of nostalgia. So in this context nostalgia functioning as a bridge was helpful.
It feels complicated to intentionally use nostalgic elements in my work or to make work about it. I would want to be more self-aware than I am, even if I have a relationship to the subject by virtue of being a person in the world. And in terms of work that draws more from my own life, I think nostalgia is there mainly in relation to my distrust of memory. Even if it’s not a thing to be read like a record, its selectiveness is troubling to me. For so many years when I was working more actively with trauma, and trauma-time, working with memory was unavoidable. These days it seems to be less about purging, and more about unearthing the connective tissue between times, places, people.
The Cultural Foundation’s residency programme has been operating in its current form since 2017. For the year 2024, residency positions will be offered in nine destinations around the world. One of these is specifically intended for writers and one for performing arts working groups, and the remaining seven destinations are open to artists in visual arts and various other fields, some also for collaborative work. HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme works as a partner in the planning of the programme.
Three New Residency Destinations in Europe
For the first time, the residency programme includes a five-month residency at Morpho located in Antwerp, Belgium. At Morpho, both Belgian and international artists receive long-term curatorial and practical support for the development of their artistic work or project.
“The residency at Morpho is an outstanding opportunity for Finnish artists, because its location on the border of two diverse cultural areas, Belgium and the Netherlands, creates connections to both. There is a huge number of diverse contemporary art organizations in the region, which also operate internationally,” describes Laura Boxberg, director of the Finnish Institute Benelux.
Another new destination with emphasis on visual arts, the Sím residency in Reykjavik, Iceland, invests in curatorial support. It is an artist residency run by the Association of Icelandic Visual Artists (SÍM), which annually receives over 200 artists from around the world. The mentoring program created especially for the Cultural Foundation’s grant recipients offers each resident artist individual support from a local curator/mentor.
In addition to these, a new destination for performing arts working groups is opening for application in Tallinn, in cooperation with Kanuti Gildi SAAL. Founded mainly by freelance artists and located in the heart of Tallinn’s old town, Kanuti Gildi SAAL is a contemporary art centre that organizes festivals and residencies. You can apply for the residency with a working group of 2-6 people for a residency period of 2-3 weeks.
“It’s wonderful that the residency program is working again in its full scope after these exceptional years, and we can offer artists new, fascinating residency destinations. About 75 residencies have already been organized through the programme, the impact of which can be seen in many ways in the work of the artists”, delights Special Advisor Johanna Ruohonen.
“The purpose is to continue developing the programme, and, in order to enable the opening of new destinations, we have to let go of some destinations as well. This year ended the collaboration with the Korean SeMA Nanji, one of the first residencies to be offered in the programme,” tells Ruohonen.
Residencies Open for Application for 2024
In the August 2023 application round, the following residencies are open for 2024:
Triangle, New York, United States, visual arts / other fields
The amount of the working grant for three-month residencies is 7,500 euros/person in total and for five-month residencies (Morpho) 12,500 euros/person. In short-term residencies (Kanuti Gildi SAAL), the amount of the grant is 650 euros/week/person.
The amount of the travel grant depends on the chosen mode of travel. For air travel, the grant is 500 euros for destinations in Europe and 1,000 euros for other destinations. In order to encourage a more climate-friendly way of travelling, destinations accessible by rail and ferry services are given a supplementary travel grant provided the trip is made without flying but through use of public transport. In the case of a residency in Estonia, the travel grant is a maximum of 300 euros, regardless of the mode of travel.
The Finnish Cultural Foundation’s August application period is 10–31 August 2023. The application round closes at 4 pm (EET) on the last application day. See detailed application guidelines here.
AA: You spent a few months in 2022 at Tokyo Arts and Space Residency. As your artistic practice involves incorporating your daily life, routines, and observations into your work, did the change of scenery bring on changes in your work as well?
PK: With the change of scenery, I expected to see new elements in the ideas that flowed through me. Because you know, when it comes to my art practice, I am hesitant to label myself as a creator. Instead, I see myself as a “door” through which certain ideas emerge, and to fulfill this role, I must be present, a challenging quality that I describe as being in the world.
This was my first trip to Japan, and I intentionally refrained from researching the country beforehand. I wanted the experience to be new and unfiltered, which it certainly was. In these situations, the mind enters an alert mode, in which one becomes fully engrossed in their surroundings, absorbing as much information as possible to navigate the new environment. Even simple acts like buying bread or crossing the street required absolute attention and sometimes demanded unlearning and relearning. This state of being usually extremely tiring and causes a lot of confusion as well, and I knew that all I need to do is try to be present (even if it means embracing my confusion) and wait for the digestion of new experiences to naturally manifest in my practice. Now a few months later, I would say some of the lessons I learned there or there have remained with me and will likely continue to influence my work in the future.
AA: I mentioned routine, but it seems to me that in your work emotions are bigger than routine, and experiencing life is never banal, not even at its most repetitive. How did the change of scenery make you feel?
PK: Sticking to a certain routine or discipline can sometimes help me reach a state of flow, and for me, being in the zone, feeling connected to the world, and experiencing joy are all interconnected. In fact, joy is an emotion that is truly compatible with my practice.
However, traveling can make it challenging for me to maintain my daily discipline. This was also the case during my residency in Japan, where I initially felt a lot of pressure and confusion due to first, the multitude of new experiences and second, the unexpectedly dense concrete structure of the neighborhood I was in. During the past eight years of living in Finland, I made a close bond with trees that I found surprisingly tough living without it in a dense city. Adding to that, my experience of getting Covid right after arriving in Tokyo, forced me to stay indoors for ten days which made me crave nature even more. Thus I would say regaining a sense of presence and joy turned into a goal of my practice in this residency, and I managed to achieve this through cycling. Every day, I used to go on a quest to find a piece of nature in or around the city to sit and wait. Through these daily trips, I had a blast experiencing a uniquely magical aura of nature in Japan which granted me a sense of connection to the new land.
Cycling also allowed me to be agile and flexible and visit many places that otherwise I might have never run into. It helped me become part of the daily life of the city and provided me with a much-needed sense of freedom and exploration.
Discovering the perfect spot for my performance between two buildings in Sumida Ku, Tokyo. Photo: Parsa Kamehkhosh
AA: Did you plan the residency period in advance? Did the ideas that occupied your mind and your work while in Japan differ from what you expected?
PK: Before leaving for Japan, I articulated my plan as follows: “I intend to explore the concept of process and processing in the context of Japanese philosophy and the ethics of craft, with a particular focus on performance as an art practice. This will involve closely observing the elements of space, body, materials, and duration in craft traditions, as well as attempting to connect with the supernatural dimensions of the Japanese workspace.”
Looking back on my residency, I’m struck by how well the final piece aligned with my original plan. However, I now realize that the process of arriving at that piece was more organic than I had anticipated. Having a loose framework to guide my exploration, I remained open to the unexpected and allowed different elements to converge naturally. As a result, I had little control over how my ideas took shape and I think my willingness to relinquish control was an important factor in how everything worked.
AA: Did you experience any surprises, unforeseen encounters, or revelations?
PK: One of the most unexpected things was getting COVID right after arriving in Tokyo, which meant that the first place I visited, other than my room, was a hospital. However, apart from that, most of my experiences in Japan were full of subtle surprises or I would say realizations. For instance, I can refer to my realizations about the notion of light and shadow in Japanese culture which literally altered my understanding of them and already showed itself in the piece I performed at the end of the residency.
AA: Did any new ideas, conceived in Japan, develop into finished works or ongoing processes while back in Helsinki?
PK: The name of the piece I presented at the open studio at the end of my residency in Tokyo was ‘Rubbing a Stone on a Piece of Wood in the Neighborhood.’ As the title implies, the piece involved rubbing a stone on a piece of cedar wood. To create this piece, I built a working station that fits in the narrow 47 cm space between two buildings near the residency. For nine days in a row, I started 30 minutes before sunset and continued the repetitive act of rubbing for one hour until it got dark.
This piece ended up being the catalyst for a year-long project that I am currently planning, set to debut in 2024.
Left: Sizing up the performance location with my body. Photo: Mio Hanaoka – Right: The custom-built working station for the performance. Photo: Parsa Kamehkhosh
