The Eye of the Storm
Myymälä2 is excited to announce The Eye of the Storm, a new curatorial program born out of the necessity to foster and maintain cultural dialogue despite the multiple crises facing us. The openness of the project consists in the fact that the events are made into a resource for artists, curators, and for other professionals who want to expand their practices and wish to access alternative platforms.
The aim is to create spontaneous trans-disciplinary encounters nationally and internationally, where the typical objectives of the artistic field are expanded by random encounters and slow time. The project consists of four sections: The Baltic Fellowship coordinated by Ramiro Camelo, focusing on our neighbouring countries; Happy Home Stay, coordinated by Arlene Tucker, nourishing selected independent artists initiatives in Finland; Äkkigalleria, with a new evolution of the concept titled Aw/oT (Artists without Transportation) coordinated by Anna Ruth; and Becoming Many, creating space for family activities in a modern constellation, coordinated by Kemê Pellicer, Marìa Villa and Lotta Esko.
Happy Home Stay
Creatives, scientists, and curious humans have been invited to Joutsa through a new collaboration between Myymälä2 gallery in Helsinki and Arlene Tucker’s Happy Home Stay in Joutsa. This project, “Life is full of possibilities / Elämä on täynnä mahdollisuuksia,” includes a residency, engaging with the community, and data collection on peaceful and authentic cohabitation. The series of workshops, artist talks, and performances are open to the public. By sharing, participants see that the world is larger than they think and gain more awareness of the choices life has to offer.
So far, a mix of researchers, gardeners, chefs, curators, artists, dancers, scientists, and filmmakers are partaking in this year-long curation of residencies and events. The list is growing, but currently, the project is welcoming Ryann Morris, Riin Magnus, Jon Dunn, Ragnhildur Ásvaldsdóttir, Cesare Cuttica, Gesa Piper, Leandro Lefa, Ines Montalvao & Ana Álvarez Piedehierro, Mélissa Longpré, Shirlene Green Newball, Emma Fält, and Nicole Oga. Participating residents are coming from Finland, Estonia, Iceland, Canada, and the USA, to name a few. New bridges, inspirations, and paths are eagerly anticipated.
Stay informed by following the FB group ‘Life is full of possibilities / Elämä on täynnä mahdollisuuksia’.If you would like to join or have questions, reach out to Arlene at: arlene.dearyou(at)gmail.com.
Upcoming events:
The art of getting in touch with non-human perspectives – Riin Magnus
Arlene Tucker
Originally from Taiwan and the USA, she has been based in Finland since 2011. She received her Bachelors of Fine Arts from the Savannah College of Art & Design in Savannah, Georgia, USA in 2002. After school, her focus in film and painting led me to the Czech Republic where she worked on film productions and art. Also, while in Prague she started writing for and collaborating with Umelec, a Czech art magazine. A new chapter in New York City found herself creating interactive products at the children’s toy company Scribble Mats.
Her immersion in various places have given her insight to different cultures and languages, with a focus on the art of non-verbal communication- something she uses in her art, teaching and business. In June 2011, she received a Masters degree in Semiotics at Tartu University in Estonia.
She combines her teaching, art, and semiotics background to create innovative public installations, useful products for people, and to discover new playful ways of communicating. Living in Norhern Europe where her senses are constantly making meaning from an orchestra of foreign sounds and contextualizing new signs, is a continuation of her dream to travel, discover and build for people.
Äkkigalleria
Aw/oT (Artists without Transportation)
Aw/oT is the latest evolutionary branch of Äkkigalleria; a multifaceted curatorial platform evolving in Jyväskylä since 2009, and curated by Anna Ruth.
As the name suggests, Aw/oT proposes an environmentally conscious, international artistic collaboration that does not include airplanes or long distance transportation. The initial idea was to develop ways of presenting physical (non-digital) international art, in Finland, without the environmental burden of transportation – of either artists or artwork. Anna Ruth, in collaboration with Myymälä2, will realise the work of 2 – 3 international (non-European) artists. In practical terms, Ruth will orchestrate the creation of an artwork according to the direction and instruction of an international artist. This project focuses first and foremost on promoting the artist, along with documentation of the process including discussions and related collaborations.
Concepts that Ruth is dealing with in this project are the environmental burden of global travel; the artist as an idea maker and innovator; the question of labour and craft in art; and issues of ownership, and property. In addition, this project also touches on the idea of nationality, the freedom of movement and the power structures which allow or restrict the movement of certain bodies based on their geographic history.
Anna Ruth
Anna Ruth is a visual artist, currently living and working in Jyväskylä, Finland. She completed her DNSEP (Masters of Fine Arts) at the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Cornouaille (France) in 1998 and was awarded a Post Diplôme from the Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts de Lyon, France in 2004.
Anna Ruth has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Canada, Finland, France, Italy, Norway, Portugal, South Africa and Sweden. Her work is compelled by place specific culture/identity, it is conceptual, minimalist and poetic, but realistic forms and figures are also frequently represented. Reoccurring themes deal with traces, territory, maps, fences and other human designs that are used to define belonging.
Her work can be found in numerous public art collections in Finland, Italy, Canada, and USA. Along side her creation, she is involved in inciting community interest in contemporary art. Since 2003 she has organized and curated thematic exhibitions in unconventional exhibition spaces such as barns, home apartments and vacant commercial spaces. In 2009, she co-founded the nomadic art gallery: Äkkigalleria with Juho Jäppinen. This special gallery does not reside in one fixed location, but regular exhibitions are organized in spur of the moment events in temporarily vacant spaces. Anna Ruth, along with Juho Jäppinen, has received 4 awards for exceptional promotion of the arts in Central Finland: TAIKE cultural award 2011, Finnish Cultural Award for Central Finland 2014, Mid Nordic Cultural Award 2015, and the 2016 Cultural Award for the City of Jyväskylä. In 2020–2021 Anna Ruth was invited as the curator for the XXV Mäntän kuvataideviikot.
Becoming Many is a heartfelt exploration of the precarious world of caregivers in the art and cultural sector through collective exhibition, performance and public discussion.
The project continues the process of the working group M-Others (Lotta Esko, María Villa and Kemê). As professional art and culture practitioners, M-Others workgroup have been discussing the complex circumstances and obstacles they encounter while developing their profession while staying present and committed as caregivers. Surprisingly, they haven’t found any spaces or initiatives in the art field in Helsinki to unpack this positionality and its challenges. It seems that this topic is still neglected. Caregiving is often understood as something people should take care of privately or through services of the welfare system, but not something that affects and shapes professional work or a matter that other institutions and cultural programming should provide accommodation for. The labour involved and the constant negotiation of time is largely invisible. Art and culture workers, like many other precarious and independent workers in Finnish society, and immigrants, in many cases, must choose between having a family and a viable artistic career.
Becoming Many’ voices echo each other with resilience, bouncing between the personal, the political, and the collective. M-Others workgroup reflects on the constant challenges and (often invisible) negotiations when caring for elders, children, or disabled people in their families, whether biological or chosen- while wanting to thrive as art and culture workers.
“We as art and culture workers, like many other precarious workers in Finnish society and immigrants, often must choose between having a family and a viable artistic career. In a field where care and empathy conversations are overflowing, it is disheartening to see how little things have changed. We repeatedly encounter that caregiving is still not acknowledged as an important factor affecting and shaping professional work, and neither institutions nor cultural programming have appropriate accommodation for it.
Our children will grow, and our elders and kin in need of care may change or disappear, but there will always be others in this situation.” – Kemê, Lotta Esko, and María Villa
Image credits: Paha kakku I, 120cm x 183cm, print on fabric, 2007-2022. By Lotta Esko.
Kemê is a poet, parent and multidisciplinary artist based in Helsinki who works with photography, performance, installation and text, often hybridising them. While her curiosity leads her to work with concepts such as memory, representation, symbols, archetypes and rites, her process embraces the complexity of our construction and the constructions we inhabit. She is most experienced in the fields of visual arts, performance art, literature, children culture, education, and coordination. As a cultural worker her interest in psychology, sustainability, and good practices within the Culture and the Arts field is summed up by her multicultural background and continuous self-learning. She has worked in different capacities in Finland and the Nordic Countries since 2016, as facilitator, educator, host, artistic content producer or coordinator, striving to contribute to the community bettering through antiracist and intersectional feminist practices. Kemê is a certified Cultural Diversity and Sustainable Development Dialogue Cards workshop facilitator. Kemê has done DEI work with: Globe Art Point ry, The Artists’ Association of Finland, Cupore, Catalysti ry, Cultural Center Caisa, Helsinki City, Espoo Museum of Modern Art-Emma, Suomen Tarinat museums partners, The Nordic Library Network, Hanaholmen Culture Center, Helsinki Art Museum-HAM, Pixelache festival, NODE center and The Nordic Arts Councils.
Marìa Villa is a curator, educator, and organizer based in Finland since 2016. Her academic background is in philosophy (BA, MA) and contemporary art (MA). She has been developing research on experimental learning, while doing small projects/interventions in local museums.
Her current teaching practice is focused on critical pedagogy and transdisciplinary work within and beyond the arts. As university teacher she has been invested in designing spaces and long-term programs for peer learning and participatory art. Her research is practice-based and directed specifically on artistic knowledge, posthuman and postcolonial debates, transformative processes, and the role of embodiment in radical pedagogies and collaborative platforms.
Lotta Esko, (MA 2003 Aalto University) works with visual arts and performance design. Esko’s oeuvre has focused on painting, but in recent years she has also used glass and video. She has had solo exhibitions in Helsinki, Amsterdam and Toronto. Lotta has also taken part in group exhibitions in Helsinki, Amsterdam and New York. For the 2012 Venice Biennale Contemporary Music Festival, Esko created a set and costume design for the contemporary opera Serial Sevens directed by Kristiina Helin.
The Baltic Fellowship Network
The Baltic Fellowship Network (BFN), is a curatorial programme initiated by Ramiro Camelo to potentiate partnerships among institutions, spaces, individuals and counterparts based in the Baltic and Nordic countries. In order to connect our international relations organically, our immediate neighbours have a pivotal role in achieving this.
“Witchiness, a visible spirit of the occult”, is a curatorial research looking at recent approaches and a shift of attention in contemporary art into subjects of magic, mysticism and spirituality, animism, and the resurgent roles of the witch and the shaman. The curatorial inquiry would emphasise the modern idea of the witch and the context and agency they operate within nowadays.
The research outcome establishes continuities and ruptures between past understandings of witchcraft, shamanism and magic. The public event in 2025 will highlight the otherworldly connections of witchcraft with nature, rediscovering traditional ecological and cosmologic knowledge held by indigenous communities; feminist advocacy and strategies for empowerment through performing, reenactments, critiques of patriarchy and post-colonial reinterpretations of witchcraft; notions of animism, spellcraft, mysticism, sorcery, herbalism, astrology, alchemy, esoterism, hermeticism, spiritualism, theosophy, chthonic rituals and divination.
The project’s first activity has been a research trip to Riga, Latvia for an international symposium “Witches Revisited: Exploration of Otherness Through Feminine Archetypes” at Zuzeum 23th May and performance festival Starptelpa 30th May.
Ramiro Camelo is a curator and Baltic Fellowship Network project manager at Myymälä2. Obtained a Master’s degree in Curating Contemporary Art at the Royal College of Art, London. A selection of his recent curatorial projects includes “Poisonous Meadow”, Myymälä2, Helsinki, (2024); “Queens of chaos”, Myymälä2, Helsinki (2023); “Field Studies in Ancestral Memory”, Myymälä2, Helsinki (2023) and “Songs of Life and Death”, Myymälä2, Helsinki (2022). He has been a guest lecturer in curatorial and professional practice for artists at The Academy of Fine Arts, Uniarts Helsinki; Vilnius Academy of Art, Lithuania; Globe Art Point GAP, Helsinki; SODAS 2123 Vilnius, Lithuania; ARS Kunstilinnak, Tallinn; The Curator Project: Curatorial Resources Thinktank, Beijing-London; Stacion, Center for Contemporary Art, Prishtina, Kosovo; PerfoArtNet, International Biennial of Performance and Festival 404 Bogota, Colombia, among others.
The project is supported by The Finnish Cultural Foundation – Suomen Kulttuurirahasto.
Cover Image by Orietta Masin