Archive for July 2008
Art exchange in Finland
For artist Ilkka Halso, a beautiful landscape turns into a meditative theatre show. Arctic Hysteria Exhibition, P.S.1 MoMA New York.
Marita Muukkonen, the curator of the FRAME Finnish Fund of Art Exchange, took us on a pleasant journey through the unknown and fascinating world of Art Exchange.
Since 1992, funded primarily by the Finnish Ministry of Culture, FRAME Finnish Fund of Art Exchange has worked within the Finnish Fine Arts Academy Foundation inviting foreign curators, critics and art historians to Finland through its Visitor’s Programme as an efficient way of expanding the international art exchange, gathering and disseminating information about Finnish contemporary art.
FRAME’s curator Marita Muukkonen explains that FRAME works on collaborative projects with Finnish or international partners and also independently produces contemporary visual art projects, exhibitions and publications.
Through the Curatorial Programme, international curators who are interested in doing research in Finland can apply to come here and FRAME also invites curators to Finland.
“We choose the curators based on the ideas and the concepts they have, and their interests. We look at the CV and see if he or she is an interesting person to invite. The system is flexible, so there are no deadlines,” says Muukkonen
International Frame of collaboration
In collaboration with the HIAP (Helsinki International Artists-in-residence Programme) and the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki, FRAME promotes links between Finland and the international contemporary art scene providing residencies for both curators and artists.
“If the visual art curators come for one month they can stay and live at the HIAP residence where curators and researchers can work, meet more artists and have exhibitions,” adds Muukkonen.
The aim of the programme is to provide curators with professional experience in organising visual art projects with an opportunity to carry out research on Finnish fine art, to contact Finnish art practitioners and to develop international curatorial projects involving Finnish artists.
“We have an Open Call for Finnish artists or artists who live in Finland for certain residencies we have in collaboration with HIAP. Every year there is a residence place in New York. If a Finnish artist applies for a residency abroad, FRAME grants it and sends him abroad. HIAP hosts foreign artists as we don’t have our own residencies,” explains Muukkonen.
FRAME participates in collaborative projects with international art institutions. There is an extensive exhibition in New York until 15 September, Arctic Hysteria: New Art from Finland, which is an intergenerational and interdisciplinary exhibition featuring 16 Finnish artists who will introduce New York audiences to outlandish visions of aliens, utopias, animals, and psychedelia.
The exhibition is organized by P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in collaboration with the Artist’s Association of Finland and FRAME.
Framework: The Finnish Art Review, is a bi-annual magazine dedicated to contemporary art, culture and cultural criticism.
www.framework.fi
Susan Fourtane – Helsinki Times
Opera in a castle with a thousand stories
Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida, another lasting Savonlinna hit, fully exploits the unique but challenging castle setting, especially in the great choral and dance scenes.
The Savonlinna Opera Festival has become one of the most illustrious fixtures in the Finnish cultural calendar, and an event of the greatest international significance.
WHEN the construction of the Olavinlinna Castle began in 1475, the castle’s founder Erik Axelsson Tott, a Danish-born knight, decided that a mighty fortress should be built to protect the strategically important area of Savonia.
Over the centuries the Olavinlinna Castle changed hands between Swedes and Russians. It was not until the beginning of the 20th century with the emerging Finnish identity and Finland’s quest for independence that the Finnish soprano Aino Ackté spotted the medieval castle as the venue for an opera festival in 1907.
The first opera festival was held in 1912. Despite the First World War, the Russian Revolution, Finland’s Civil War and the ensuing economic difficulties, news of the festival had already reached opera lovers in other parts of the world.
The Savonlinna Opera Festival has grown from a one-week event into an international festival that lasts a month. Each year 10 per cent of the estimated 60,000 that attend come from abroad.
Nine operas have been premiered at the Savonlinna Opera Festival since 1967. The 2008 season sees the premiere of the Festival’s tenth opera on 12 July, The Seven Dog Brothers by Markus Fagerudd. It is the third and last part of the trilogy based on the books by Mauri Kunnas, Finland’s premier children’s writer, on the Finnish lirerary classic by Aleksis Kivi.
The Savonlinna Opera Festival has also been hosting foreign opera companies since 1987. The guest for 2008 is the Shangai Opera House bringing along Verdi’s Otello, and a representative of contemporary Chinese opera, a tantalisingly mystical work called The Wager by Wen Deqing.
The unique festival will be held from 4 July to 2 August, and opens with Arrigo Boito’s Mefistofele, conducted by the festival’s new Artistic Director Jari Hämäläinen.
Finland, a warm place for my heart and soul
Finland, a warm place for my heart and soul
By Susan Fourtané
This is a story of pursuing a dream. A story of determination and strong will. A story that shows there is anything impossible if we really want something in our heart.
Seeing through the dark and cold winters it is possible to see the beauty of Finland. You just need to open your heart and feel the love coming from the land of your dreams.
Finland is my home, the place I live, where I belong. It is where I can breathe and feel pure energy invading my body, filling my soul with the sweet knowledge of having found my place in the world.
I have always believed that some of us don’t belong to the place where we are born. I believe that some of us have a strong conviction of knowing that our place in the world is somewhere out there and it is in us to trust our inner Self and go on the adventure of finding that special place in the world.
After living for many years in different places, I came to Finland on vacation to visit some friends who had told me wonderful stories about Finland saying it was a place I would certainly fall in love with. It was in September 2005 that I came to Finland for the first time. It was then when I had the feeling I had been yearning for, for so long time, a warm feeling difficult to describe, a tingly feeling like when you fall in love, you can’t explain why you fall in love with a certain person and not with another one. With that growing feeling I went back to Prague, where I lived for three years, making plans to move to Finland in a year. That year a pickpocket stole my wallet and emptied my bank account in eight minutes. The mistake I made was to have my credit card and pin code together. This was in March 2006 and I had only five months left. I courageously made the move to Finland in September of that year.
With no Finnish boyfriend or husband, no job or university waiting for me -the only three reasons the Finnish government considers valid for extending a resdence permit and I was only in love with Finland, trying by all means to follow my dream, my ideal, my heart.I spent the three months allowed on my tourist visa trying to find a job and making connections. With everything that had happened with my bank account I didn’t have much time to waste as I was living on my savings. The circle was always the same, when applying for a job they asked me for a residence permit and for the residence permit I needed a job offer, it was a catch 22. I only had my determination to make my dream come true, the certainty that Finland was going to be my home and that I was going to fight for it.
At the end of November, with the expiration of my three month tourist visa I had to leave the EU for 90 days. I went to Tallinn, Estonia and dedicated my time to writing short stories that I would soon lose when my laptop crashed unexpectedly. It was now a time for deep meditation, a time for reflection, a time for introspection.
Back in Finland on March 1st and with another three months ahead on a new tourist visa, I got a job offer from a company that later on helped me in the process of starting my own business. I applied for my first residence permit and after a long wait I finally received it in September 2007.
What do I like about Finland? Finland is the most peaceful country I have ever been to. I enjoy living in Helsinki where I can get the benefits of a capital city plus the beauty of being close to the sea and the forests, all the wonderful nature Finland has to offer. I love to see the changes of seasons, the colorful fall, the white winters, the flourishing spring and the unique summer with its midnight sun, a star-less night. I love picking berries and mushrooms in the company of a good Finnish friend who teaches me about the intimate forest and its wondrous magic.
Finns are human beings worth discovering, with a rich inner life and the wisdom of knowing when to remain silent when not having anything worth saying. I like the appreciation of silence, as is in silences when it is possible to achieve wisdom, observation and contemplation. Finns are incredible friends who don’t need to be boisterous to express their feelings. Finns look deeply into your eyes and talk. It’s a magical form of communication. I have met a majority of wonderful Finns in these two years.
Working with Finns is a pleasant experience. They teach and share what they know and when you learn the way they do things, all the pieces seem to fall into place. You feel you belong and they integrate you to their world. I have loved my experience in the Finnish company, where I felt they are my family. We still do business together, as nowadays I have my own business and also work as a freelance journalist.
In Finland I have found my place in the world. I belong to this quiet, small and beautiful country. I love to listen to the sounds of silence in the forest, to the sounds of nature flowing through the core of my being. I love to observe how this land speaks to me.
It’s not important where I was born as I never felt that my homeland, a part of who I am. Finland is the place where my soul fits comfortably like a glove. Finland is a warm place for my heart and soul.
Sometimes when people ask me where I am from I simply say I am a citizen of all but only Finland holds my heart.
About the writer
Susan Fourtane is a published non-fiction and short fiction story writer trying her hand at screenwriting. She is working to create that great masterpiece that will tell the world something meaningful that will touch the sensitivity in every individual’s soul.
“. . . And if one soul has become nourished by my thoughts, by my words, then I have accomplished one of my most cherished dreams.” (susan fourtane)
In the meantime, she dreams. What to do if not to dream, if dreams are the place where the illusions come from. The place where we create what we want to become true. Nothing happens unless first a dream.
Susan is currently a member of Writer’s Village University, where she has taken several writing courses.
She has been Moderator of The Literary Gang in a Short Story MFA program.
Susan is also a member of the American Screenwriters’ Association and Poets & Writers’ Registery.
As a citizen of the world, Susan began her search for her place in the world in Buenos Aires, Argentina; back in the beginning of the year 2000. After many travels looking for her dream place, having lived in Argentina, Mexico, The United States, England, The Czech Republic and Estonia, her soul found that dream place in Finland in September 2006.
Susan has been living in Helsinki, Finland, ever since, where she combines freelance journalism and writing with Philosophy studies, teaching, her passion for the arts and the closeness to nature.
Films in the Midnight Sun
Films in the Midnight Sun
Since Aki and Mika Kaurismäki founded the Midnight Sun Film Festival in 1985, every summer film fans flock to the land 100 km north of the Artic Circle where the sun doesn’t set for several weeks.
SODANKYLÄ, a small and quiet town in Finnish Lapland, welcomed film lovers to the 23rd Midnight Sun Film Festival to spend five days of twenty four hours of an unforgettable film marathon.
From 11th to 15th June Finnish and international guests shared life and work experiences in morning discussions with festival director Peter von Bagh.
Finnish actor legend Lasse Pöysti was warmly received by the audience.
“Pöysti simply has always had a special ability to decode the heartbeat of Finnish mentality,” von Bagh expressed.
American actor Seymour Cassel is still bubbling with life after a long acting career started in 1959 with John Cassavetes’s improvisational film Shadows.
The director of 5 Oscars winner One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and 8 Oscars winner Amadeus, Miloš Forman, is seen by young film makers as an example of someone who walks a path of success despite having lived difficult times in his native Czekoslovakia.
“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a Czech film,” he said. The communist party was my big nurse. For you Americans it’s literature, for me it’s my life experience, what you are allowed to say, what you are allowed to do what you are allowed to express, to think.”
“Be faithful to yourself and tell the truth without being boring,” is the message Forman gives to the new generations.
“School doesn’t teach you talent, opinion or vision but can inspire you. In school you have time to develop your own vision, you can do foolish things and many times you have to do a hundred foolish things before developing your own way.”
Andrei Konchalovsky reveals himself as a witty screenwriter and director who employs a simple but powerful language that enables the spectator to reach the idea of the film through consciousness as well as the heart.
He values contemplation as a way of developing good thinking.
“The cinema makes you think through images not through sound. Cinema can convey emotions through images. The most expensive thing in visual effect is human face, because is human face which transmits and transcend from the dead screen to the live heart of yours.”
Other guests included French Serge Bozon, Estonian Veiko Ounpuu and Swedish Ruben Östlund.
Finnish guests included the directors Mari Rantasila, Mikka Soini, Jouko Aaltonen and the actors Ria Katja, Kari Väänänen and Anni-Kristiina Juusto.
Directed by Yakov Protazanov’s, 1921 silent film Aelita based on the Soviet sci-fi novel by Aleksei Tolstoy on which the Finnish contemporary performance group Cleaning Women plays the score was a pearl this year.
For more information on films and guests see www.msfilmfestival.fi
SUSAN FOURTANE
HELSINKI TIMES
Art as a mirror of consciousness
Art as a mirror of consciousness
SUSAN FOURTANE
HELSINKI TIMES
TIITUS PETÄJÄNIEMI’S eleventh exhibition looks sad in a funny way, as he describes it. The characters in his paintings can be a mix of human-extraterrestrial-animal faces or can be abstract works. Contrasting the characteristic sadness, Petäjäniemi plays with bright, joyful colors defying the viewer to swim in waters of deep thinking.
His paintings mirror the sadness people daily manifest, what is present around the artist surroundings.
“It is kind of interesting to see no matter how well people are doing, they are sad and unhappy,” the artist says.
His oil on canvas or wood work as a trigger, making the viewer wonder about sadness and happiness. Wouldn’t we be happier appreciating what we have instead of lamenting for what we don’t have?
Petäjäniemi’s works are not easy. They are a challenge for the viewer’s intellect, an invitation to the association of creative ideas. Understanding what the artist tries to say requires more than a couple of seconds observing the many layers in his works. The time invested is rewarding, indeed.
His work is authentic creation. He starts painting until he gets an answer from himself about the painting. If he is not satisfied, he adds more layers.
“Creating comes more natural and fresh than copying a model. I like the feeling when I notice a painting is ready,” he says.
His love for jazz finds space on canvas too. The Big Bang, represented by a drummer, is a sequence of associative thinking of the start of something bigger.
Petäjäniemi describes his Maalaus Vallasta Lastenhuoneen Seinälle (Painting About Power through the children’s room) as his best work.
“It has everything I feel about power and its symbols,” he explains.
The little chair on the table, symbol of power in the 19th Century, looks like a pint of beer ready to lure the sad man. The tall office building behind represents the rules and laws. A storm of changes is in the sky symbolizes the possibility of charges that are always there for the ones who can see them.
“Even when the winds of change are blowing people don’t see them and can’t make changes in their lives. You can make up your own story from what you see. This is the story I see, yours could be totally different,” he concludes.
The forty six art works are in exhibition at Galleria Jangva, located in the heart of Helsinki on Uudenmaankatu 4-6, entrance through the courtyard.
Opening hours: Tue-Fri 11am-7pm, Sat-Sun 11am-5pm
For more information see www.jangva.fi
