Monthly Archives: May 2010

first flowers in the garden

I’ve been so busy that I’ve had no time to focus on the garden -and I’m not a garden fanatic like Aila for example. But still the first flowers in the garden bring me so much joy! My daughter got this idänunikko from Aila last year and it opened its first flower a couple of days ago. Also the japaninakileija in the background (small & delicate) is blooming – and it’s also from Aila…

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My daughter is working hard in the garden and it’s beautiful to watch how inspired and committed she is. We had such a lovely time a few weeks ago when we planted seeds of carrots, spinach, salad, peas and sunflowers…which are all growing already.

My weekend will be filled with rehearsals of Acts of Clothing, Milk and ANTI Festival stuff like EU excels… But today I felt inspired as I had a meeting with Sonja and a little chat about my upcoming work.

Johanna

weekend in Berlin

I spent last weekend in Berlin seeing exhibitions, walking around and enjoying the spirit of the vibrant and trendy city. I saw exhibitions in Martin-Grobius-Bau which I really liked. I especially enjoyed Olafur Eliasson‘s works -some were just stunning- and it was also great to see once again a retrospective of Frida Kahlo. I’m a bit over with my passion for Frida’s works (I was crazy about her in the 80’s) but I still enjoyed the beautiful exhibition. I think I’ve never seen so many photographs of Frida. What a beautiful woman! Very inspiring. Then I saw the exhibition in Hamburger Bahnhof which was also exciting. Lot’s of works by Joseph Beuys, many fluxus artists, Andy Warhol…
I was lucky to be able to stay in a friend’s place who also kindly drew the routes to walk and streets to hang out on my tourist map. Thank you Jochen! And I just loved the area of Prenzlauer Berg. Great walks, lovely breakfasts…

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On the way home, I met some friends at the Helsinki airport and we ended up wondering that why is it exactly that we live in Kuopio… Sometimes it’s hard to remember…

Johanna

days in Hamburg

I’ve been the last three days in Hamburg spending most of my time in the Live Art Festival in Kampnagel. We’ve had A Space Live for Art project meetings about both the artistic and administrational side and today I held a lecture/workshop about artistic interventions in public space to the network of Young Performance Art Lovers. I’ve also seen some great performances by Ivo Dimchev, Ivana Muller, Liquid Loft, Rotozaza and an installation by the Forsythe Company.

Kampnagel foyer with the Forsythe Company’s installation City of Abstracts on the background:
Kampnagel foyer

studio where I gave my workshop today:
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A Space for Live Art meeting with Claire, Emmanuelle, Cathy, Anne, Jochen and Fabienne: 

ASFLA meeting

I look really strange, I know – I guess I’m just happy about my beautiful salad (and a glass of wine…):

dinner

salad

Rhododendrons blooming not only in the Kampnagel courtyard but all over Hamburg:

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A walk in town:
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Lovely pink rubbish bags on the streets:
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Tomorrow I’m off to Berlin for the weekend. How exciting!

Johanna

Unusually…

hot days. Moments of happiness in the garden with my daughter, planting carrot, salad, peas, spinach and sunflower seeds. A few days off and a chance to think about something else than the upcoming ANTI Festival. A nice evening with the neighbours including great organic white wine, grilled salmon, cake my son baked, the first mosquito bites and sun burns. Two new rhododendrons in the garden.
A hot run and no pain in the operated knee, wearing new Asics running skirt. Slow but steady.
Excited about the upcoming trip to Hamburg and Berlin this week. A bit terrified of all the work that needs to be completed before the trip…

Johanna

Morning coffee on the balcony: aamukahvi

The Mother’s Dat morning a week ago…with beautiful gifts, cake, pies, sweets, coffee….mothers day

Permission to run

I saw the orthopedist who operated my knee for the second time after the surgery yesterday. It has heeled remarkably well and has full mobility. This is quite amazing since it will be only 3 months from the surgery tomorrow. So the recovery process has gone as expected, only a little bit better. My orthopedist, Hannu Miettinen, said that I can pretty much start to exercise anything I want besides the contact sports where there’s a bigger risk of twisting the knee, slipping or ‘landing’ badly so these would be football, tennis, squash etc. But I’m allowed to start running again! This is wonderful news, I was so happy. Of course I have to start very gradually and slowly and listen how the knee reacts but if the surface is flat and even, I can run. You cannot imagine how that feels. So as soon as I got home from the doctor, I put on my running gears and went for an easy, short, slow 32 minutes run. There were definitely very strange sensations on the knee, more so below the knee, not exactly pain but kind of ache. It’s hard to explain. But I did run for 32 minutes. And I was soooo happy and relieved and it was a beautiful evening.
So now I need to start building more strength and co-ordination and learn to trust the knee again. Although it’s much better day by day, this part is difficult. I realize that I’m still a bit cautious and have questions like why did it happen, what did I do wrong, will it happen again? But Hannu said that I shouldn’t worry or start to fear as these things happen and sometimes it’s only a small twist into the wrong direction or bad landing from a jump that can cause the ACL to torn. And it’s slightly more common for women to tear the ACL… Anyway, for another month I need to be very careful as the ligamentation process is not completed and it actually goes on for at least a year or so. Hannu also said that I shouldn’t for example sit on my knees for about 6 months as it stretches the reconstructed ACL too much.

Anyway, it’s all gone well and I think I’ll be ready for my performances in June.

Johanna