Author Archives: Johanna
post festival blues
The 10th ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival happened last week in Kuopio and it was just amazing. The atmosphere was great through out the festival, the artists were all wonderful and so professional and I felt so proud of what I and others have created together. So thank you! I want to thank all the artists, our producer Laura for her devotion, the volunteers and our wonderful audience that had gathered to Kuopio from around Finland, the States, UK, Australia, Indonesia, Iceland, Belgium, Sweden, Canada… It’s all worth the hard work, the sleepless nights, the stress, the tears, the sweat…
If you have something (positive) to say or comment about the ANTI Festival, please email to me or leave your comment on our website here.
I’m listening to the new album of Chisu, drinking cheap cava and eating tiramisu. The autumn has been very busy and I need to catch up with sleep. I’m excited about the upcoming performances, my studies in cultural policy, developing my work and planning the next edition of ANTI. I’m also aware that I need to see some new work, somehow, somewhere.
I had a small gum surgery a couple of days ago and I’ve been pretty ill. Unfortunately, I cannot do any proper training until I’m a bit better, so that’s a bit frustrating.
Looking forward to the weekend at home!
Johanna
images from the 10th ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival
All photos by Pekka Mäkinen.
pics & clips
Here are a few pictures from last week. Unfortunately, not from the Visio show – not yet anyway. But here are two short clips of Antti Rissanen, a very talented bmx cyclist who performed in the show last night. My clips are not from the most amazing tricks he performed but you get the idea…
I think I’ve told that my daughter takes her ice-skating quite seriously. After the ice, they have a training session ‘on the ground’ where they practice the jumps and slides etc. without the skates. I followed a little bit of it… and she is pretty good. You’ll figure out who she is…
And once again, getting back to my love for design and architecture (I should have been an architect, remember!). In Kuopio’s Saaristokaupunki, where I also live, a lot of houses are constantly built. Most of them look so horrible, disgusting and boring that I don’t want to spend a minute writing about them. Well now, people who bought these very very expensive pieces of land directly by the lake in the island of Käränkä, have started to build their houses. Some of them look kind of interesting or at least decent, but this one… I mean, who spends hundreads of thousand of euros on the piece of land and then decides to build this????
No offence, but in the first place I would like to ask the city of Kuopio why on earth they give permission to build something like this on a such an amazing and visible spot? I mean… What’s going on? I do not understand the builders either but what can you do if you don’t have any sense of contemporary style or design or architecture? And what is the responsibility of Kannustalo, the company who’s made the house? The whole Saaristokaupunki is damaged by this company and their terribly old fashioned traditional houses which I just hate! In the worst case, you can see 5 exactly same houses from their catalogue on one street. I mean, it’s just disgusting! It’s exactly this kind of building that makes me vomit and I’m not sure how long I want to live in Saaristokaupunki if it’s this kind of environment that I have to look at every bloody day.
Johanna
Kuopio, a lively city?
What an intensive week I had. Spent a day in Jyväskylä and another one in Helsinki. Had a lot of thoughts about cultural policy, arts funding and arts management. In Helsinki I saw a performance by a graduating MA student – a very highly educated dancer entering into this insecure, unstable, problematic and debated field and business. Maybe it’s because I’m evaluating her final work that I’m somehow very conscious of all these rather negative issues in our field. And I’m not sure what I think about it. Part of me of course wants to encourage her and everyone and a part of me is really sad because it will be hard. On the other hand, it might not be hard for her at all and what is hard for each person varies so much anyway…
I gave a talk about ANTI in a seminar on Wednesday and it was kind of inspiring to hear and learn about other festivals and events in the city of Kuopio. The city is finally making or renewing its marketing strategy and festivals and events are of course a big part of the brand and image of the city. And if Kuopio wants to be a lively city, I think ANTI is doing the best job in the cultural sector.
So I was in Helsinki on Friday and realized that I wasn’t at all interested in going to the Habitare fair. This is a bit strange as I’m usually very interested in design. I’m not even sure when it was that I last visited Habitare (maybe last year?) but it was a bit of a disappointment so this year I didn’t really even consider it. But my desires were fulfilled last night in the 20th anniversary birthday party of Visio which was an inspiring event combining style, fashion, design and gourmet. I was so happy to participate and very, very proud of Kari and Sari. The venue was great, the old VR-makasiini factory building, which could be this amazing venue for all kinds of events, parties and performances in Kuopio but is hardly ever used. I know they had a lot of problems to get all the necessary permissions to organize this event there but I’m so proud they did and I really hope more people would start doing the same. Kuopio needs something like that! And Kuopio wouldn’t be the same without Visio = Kari & Sari. Think about this: these two very inspirational people who didn’t have to do anything wanted to organize this event which included a fantastic hair/fashion show, very well designed and organized venue with music, lights, BMX performer, lots of sparkling wine and gourmet deserts. And they invited about 500 people to enjoy all this for free! All I can say is thank you. And I love you!
With Kari & Sari
And I got to wear my golden Finsk shoes! Lovely.
We took a lot of pictures from the show…hopefully I’ll get to post a few later.
Johanna
autumn harvest…
Crazily busy days! ANTI Festival is just around the corner, I’m performing next week Acts of Clothing in Jyväskylä, giving a talk tomorrow in a seminar in Kuopio, on Friday watching & evaluating a graduate’s performance in Helsinki, trying to squeeze in Pilates & Kinesis & Zumba & Cycling into my busy schedule and find some time to read and write and think. Should also see some performances. Not easy.
I don’t know if you remember that I planted some seeds of chili pepper and cherry tomato in the spring. The harvest isn’t that impressive but tomatoes are getting ripe inside and chilies are just turning red. Not much to eat but maybe I’ll dry the chili peppers, there are quite a few of them.
Feeling rather tired, so off to bed now.
Johanna
Love the Doll Eyes
After coming back from Joensuu on Thursday, I did go to Sokos’s ’beauty week’ event and met the same Lancome representative who already has introduced me to the new Doll Eyes eyeshadows. Unfortunately, the Baby Pop was sold out but after taking a closer look at the Baby Romance palette, I realized that I will definitely use it among other products to look better, since I also been using some professional lash artist glues to improve my lashes. It has a lovely bright silver and metallic darker brownish grey which are just great colours. It also has two shades of pink, one is very light and bright and the other one a bit darker. In my everyday make up, I use most often a pink eye shadow. I’ve had a lovely Guerlain palette and I’ve used up the pink so this new lovely Doll Eyes palette will be in every day use. Very good. Yesterday I made my eye make up using all the colours in the palette and my partner said in the evening t that it looks really good. He doesn’t usually pay much attention to my make up, let alone analyze my eye make up so that was rather surprising. But it just shows that the colours are great and they really work for me.
Sokos had an offer that if you also buy a Lancome skin care product, you’ll get a gift containing a cleanser and toner. Since many of my friends are absolutely crazy about the Lancome Genifique Serum, I decided to try it as well. Besides the cleanser and toner, I also got a tester of a new serum and Genifique eye concentrate…and an umbrella! Horray! All very well needed during the autumn.
We got a surprise visit last night when Tatu and Anniina came over. We spent a mellow evening eating low carb pizza, lovely cheeses, drinking wine, listening to and playing music and discussing intensively, as always.
Johanna
Kuopio, Jyväskylä, Joensuu, Kuopio…
Today I gave a talk about A Space for Live Art and UP TO NATURE EU funded projects in Joensuu. My talk was part of the Taiteen, kulttuurin ja luovien alojen rahoituspäivä, translating roughly ‘funding of arts, culture and creative industries’. Sounds terrible but it was quite inspiring actually. Riikka Leskinen from Cimo talked about the EU Culture Programme 2007-2013 and then I gave practical information about our projects, how we got involved in them and what is the everyday like managing the projects. It was also great to see Mari Karikoski from the Arts council of Finland and Hanna Susitaival from the regional arts council of Pohjois-Karjala.
Now I’m on my way back to Kuopio, proofreading (for the hundredth time) the upcoming ANTIVERSARY book. But it should go to print today! Hurray. Ahhh, the ANTI Festival is coming up veeerrryyyyyy soon and I’m beginning to feel the excitement…
This week I’ve been already in Jyväskylä so it’s been a rather challenging week in terms of exercising. I’ve had rehearsals of Acts of Clothing as I’m performing it soon in Jyväskylä, had a Pilates class and yesterday Zumba. Tomorrow I’m back to studio with Acts of… and will have functional training sessions both on Friday and Saturday. And on most days I’ve cycled to work. So should be a pretty good week, enough aerobic and strength training.
Last week I got a -20% reduction coupon for Sokos’s beauty week and I’m now wondering if this would be the time to get the new Lancome eyeshadow… I really like the Doll Eyes Baby Pop….hmmm.
What do you think?
Johanna
Busy weeks getting back to business!
Last week was so great as Gregg was visiting Kuopio, we worked long, intense days, had meetings and then spent a couple of days in Helsinki doing the same with our ANTI team – myself, Gregg and Laura. Hard work but inspiring! I like it. We also saw some performances in Kuopio and Helsinki. With Gregg we have a pattern of seeing the most horrible performances together in Finland…and this time it was sort of like that again. We saw one very terrible work and another one which wasn’t bad but just so not what we are interested in in Art. Anyway, it was good to see them as they brought up a lot of thoughts about art in society, the kind of audiences that we are trying to reach thru our work etc etc. But I was very lucky to see a really great performance Talk to me with Laura on Saturday night in Pannuhalli. I was so happy, so inspired intellectually and artistically, it really returned by faith in contemporary performance. And that is great.
We also ate some great sushi in Zen Sushi and amazing thai food in MaiThai. Yammy.
On Saturday afternoon I had a meeting with Satu in Minna Parikka’s boutique in Bulevardi and we tried practically every pair of shoes in the shop! Great fun. Unfortunately, the A/W collection wasn’t out yet so I had to settle into a pair of Acacias which were on sale, -50%. So that was a bargain. We also checked out Nanso and Marimekko…and sinned. Terrible!
On Sunday I finally got to meet my friend Maija and her newborn daughter. She was so beautiful, they both were! Hope I get to meet them soon again.
This week flew by so quickly as we have been working on the final corrections of the ANTIVERSARY book, written several grant applications etc. On Friday I finally got my hands on with ANTI Festival’s financial report of A Space for Live Art 2010… It will be so much work…and it always takes forever! Well, I do get some strange pleasure from Excel…
I’ve had a pretty nice training rhythm doing Kinesis, Pilates and Functional training and warming up Acts of Clothing. It was funny – yesterday I met a woman in Functional studios who asked after our functional training class that why do I look so familiar… Well, it turned out that she had seen my Acts of Clothing a year ago in Helsinki in the Ateneum theatre – and had liked it a lot. Small world.
Tonight is the time for some fun as we are going to see Jukka Poika, Raappana and Sound Explosion Band in Puikkari. See you there!
Johanna
Johanna is featured in the M Word – Real Mothers in Contemporary Art book by Demeter Press
Here’s a link to order this exciting book edited by Myrel Chernick and Jennie Klein.
“The M Word puts the most hallowed and fraught life relationship of all into the center of visual culture. Working through feminist ambivalence about motherhood (in all of its myriad and motley forms), this collection offers a crucial corrective to the dearth of discussions about life choices and living tensions for creative women in art and art discourse. With a range of key feminist artists, art historians, and theorists addressing topics from Mexican feminist art collectives to the Holocaust and mothering to queer mothering, this book presents a range of rigorous thinking in textual and visual form. In The M Word, maternity, as a state, an ideology, an “image,” becomes the perfect pivot through which to examine women imagining ourselves into the sometimes incompatible roles of caring, care-taking, thinking, and making.”
– Amelia Jones, Grierson Chair in Visual Culture, Department of Art History and Communication Studies, McGill University
