Category Archives: Festivals

Map of Scars at Full Moon Dance Festival this week

This Sunday we are performing Map of Scars at the Full Moon Dance Festival in Pyhäjärvi, Finland. I’m so happy to re-visit Pyhäjärvi as it is the festival where my works have been performed more than at any other festival. I’ve performed Milk, Outstanding Performance and Acts of Clothing there. On Friday we are rehearsing in Kuopio and then travelling to Pyhäjärvi on Saturday and performing on Sunday, on the opening day of the festival. Hope to see you there!

The rest of my days 11-28 in Australia were busy with IETM Satellite meeting in Melbourne and the caravan to Sydney, my talk at the Arts House and research for my upcoming project and PhD. But I had a day off when I visited Healsville Sactuary, which was quite magical! And I’m so happy I did that day tour.

Walk in the rainforest:P1080210 P1080214At the William Ricketts Sanctuary:P1080353
My first ever Espresso Martini in Melbourne:IMG_1013
Spotted Marimekko magazine at the local laundry in South Melbourne: P1080360
A surprise guest at my door:P1080362Melbourne skyline from Footscray:P1080370
Wearing Marimekko and Minna Parikka:P1080514Visiting Heide Museum:P1080528NGV: P1080530 P1080532 P1080535A view from St Kilda where I went to watch pinguins at sunset:P1080539 P1080542 P1080545 P1080553 P1080555 P1080566Oysters at a premiere, Melbourne style:P1080587On a walk: P1080600 P1080603 P1080606 P1080608 P1080609 P1080611My talk:P1080589Australia was magical, inspiring, fun and an amazing opportunity to focus on my work and thoughts! So thank you ITAK, the regional dance centre of Eastern Finland and Moriarty’s Project in Melbourne. Also a big thank to Angharad Wynne-Jones, Sophie Travers and Alison Halit and everyone I met and hang out with!!!

When I came back from Australia, my days were busy with the upcoming ANTI Festival, my son’s graduation and Meet Johanna Tuukkanen performance.

Days of happiness, emotions, work, family, exhaustion, grief and disappointment…

Hope to see you in Pyhäjärvi!

Wishes, wishes,
Johanna

Melbourne days 6-10

 

 

My time here seems to fly!

The last days I’ve spent working in the studio, reading about cities by Nigel Thrift, on work emails, seeing performances at the Next Wave Festival (saw Fluvial and Kids killing kids on Saturday which were both great), meeting up with some friends, artists and organizers and wandering about in the city and in Fitzroy… It’s quite inspiring to be on my own!

I’m aware that my aspirations for this month are ambitious – too high. But I’m trying to make most of it! Working on my new project, my PhD, letting myself to be inspired and excited about works I see, artists and curators I meet…

Melbourne city with its famous Lanes is buzzing but quite relaxed. Melbournians are famous of their hospitality – and they deserve to be! I’ve had only one very rude encounter at the Next Wave Festival club Shebeen where a waitress treated me like I was the most irrelevant person on earth. Well, it was a busy Saturday night and I’m not a young trendy hipster but still… I don’t particularly feel that I want to spend my money there – since my order wasn’t really much of an importance to that particular waitress.

Some pics of the famous Lanes:
P1080153 P1080154 P1080156I don’t really understand what’s going on with the horses on Swinston St.?
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A Saturday afternoon walk from South Melbourne to the Queen Victoria Market:
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Had a great coffee at the Market Lane Coffee:
P1080167 P1080164 P1080169Popped into Uniqlo, one my favourite shops! They’ve just recently opened the first shop in Australia and it’s in Melbourne! So it’s pretty packed and busy… I love their ultra light down jackets, I have a few… But I spotted some Finnish design there as well! Horray Tove Jansson and the Moomins! Horray Paola Suhonen and Ivana Helsinki!
P1080170 P1080171 P1080173 Melbourne offers a great variety of amazing food… Here some Vietnamese steamed dumplings.
P1080176Another morning run in Albert Park: 
IMG_0957My home street! P1080184All Australian made! Leggings by Zoya. A treat for myself from Smith St., Fitzroy. IMG_0965Tomorrow I’m off to Healesville for a day trip. Have to get some sleep now!

Johanna

Melbourne day 3

Slept well, thanks to melatonin! Went to South Melbourne Market in the afternoon, really nice.
P1080109 P1080110 P1080111 P1080114Me and Terhi Pölkki shoes: P1080116 P1080119I love Melbourne! Bought this gorgeous Swords red wine at the South Melbourne Market in a returnable 3 AUD deposit bottle.
“These wine bottles are sanitized and refilled in our North Melbourne facility making them a environmentally friendly choice to drink from. When a bottle is returned to one of our retail stores or alternatively left out when we deliver your next order a $3 per bottle or $36 per case refund is credited to your account.” And every 10th bottle is free! P1080124P1080130

The afternoon was spent with emails & a skype meeting… Not really as I planned but I’m happy that I had a proper night’s sleep. Back to research and studio tomorrow.

In the evening I went to the city to ACMI to see Hello There, We’ve Been Waiting For You as part of the Next Wave Festival. P1080126 P1080127 P1080128 P1080131After the show, had a wonderful dinner with Angharad and Rajni. Thank you! Feeling happy and grateful.

Johanna

Network meeting in Milan

I’m part of the Space2 Destination project and the last meeting of the current network was last week in Milan. I’ve never visited Milan before so it was really inspiring to get to know the city a little bit, visit different areas and sites and of course to meet with my collegues. The meeting was organized during Uovo performing arts festival so I also saw performances each night.

An afternoon walk in the city centre around Duomo:

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A visit to Museo delle Culture which is still being built and under construction. Can you see the Alvar Aalto shapes or is it just me?

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Near the Liveinslums Headquarters:

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A visit to HangarBicocca:
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HangarBicocca‘s exhibition spaces were just insanely massive… Insane, indescribable…

Milan offered lovely risottos and pastas, amazing ice-cream, good wine and Spritz and of course the weather in Southern Europe is just really nice in the spring… And style… I’m not sure any city in the world can beat Milan!

Johanna

Happy New Year!

So it’s 2014 and I wish you all a happy new year!

As you have noticed, my blogging hasn’t been very active in 2013 and  there are several reasons for it and maybe some excuses as well. One obvious reason is that besides my full time artistic work and part time work at ANTI Festival, I was also studying. I completed an MA in Cultural Policy and begun a course on management and leadership. Basically, this has meant that all the possible time I’ve had at hand, I’ve had to use on my studies and not i.e. on blogging. And believe me, it was a tough year! But for a longer time, I’ve also been suffering from a conflict concerning the content of my blogging. I have so many kind of ‘confidential’ plans, ideas and things going on which I don’t really feel confident sharing which makes me uneasy and hesitant – which is not good for blogging. Anyway… thought I would like to share that, at least. However, things are not looking much easier at the moment. My CEO training course is still going on (should be completed in May!) and after my MA, I’ve also begun a PhD at the University of Jyväskylä. My research plan was accepted by the university and I received a three month kick off grant to begin my thesis. Hurray! This is soooo exciting and terrifying and something I absolutely never thought of in my life before. And that is great! To be doing or to find yourself doing something you never could have imagined before. Because it means that all kinds of things unimaginable NOW might be possible at some point of your life so you really don’t know where life takes you. And I find this thought rather soothing.

2014 marks a new beginning for me also in a way that my 3 year artist grant from the Arts Council of Finland ended in December 2013 and I’ve returned full time to ANTI Festival since January. I feel rather excited about that and want to develop several aspects of the job and the organization itself. One thing I definitely want focus and need to spend time with is networking and seeing more work, especially in Finland. So, besides having some meetings,  last week I spent a few days in Helsinki at the Lux Helsinki Festival that focuses on light art. And I must say that I was… a bit disappointed. I mean my overall experience which consisted of the Invisible Light light art symposium and all the works at the festival experienced during a guided walk provided by the festival (my guide was Kukka-Maaria) was OK but the works themselves I found rather mainstream, commercial, decorative and just too easy, beautiful and colorful. Somehow to me these kinds of works represent something that should always be present in a big city and artistically, there wasn’t really anything that interesting to me about them. So to call Lux Helsinki a festival on light art is a bit confusing to me. Of course, I do think it’s great that Lux Helsinki gets people to walk on the streets, be outdoors, experience works in the beginning of January outdoors – in terms of cultural policy and citizenship this is great and very important. But it doesn’t mean that it’s great art and that is my problem. Probably I enjoyed Jari Haanperä’s Fyr and Philipp Artus’s Snailtrail the most and the symposium was inspiring to further think about issues on light art in general. But would I travel to Helsinki just for Lux Helsinki – no. But if you are there, why not.

This January I will be in Helsinki every week attending meetings, events and networking. Feels great! During my Helsinki days I’m also looking forward to have a dinner at Boulevard Social and Patrona.

Will keep you posted!

Johanna

Spaces, places and journeys

Insanely busy days filled with thinking and writing about place, space and urban planning (finally sent off the essay!), trying to finalize the ANTI 2013 programme, the CEO course, my upcoming new work, applying travel grants to be able to be on a seriously exciting panel at PSI#19 in Stanford, US in the summer and getting ready for my Iisalmi-Helsinki-Brussels-Chigaco-New York-Kuopio journey that starts tomorrow!

So it’s all about work, day and night, 7 days a week.
It’s about art, research, places and spaces.
Packing and unpacking.

I feel tired but inspired.

I don’t think I can ever travel anywhere without thinking of Doreen Massey and Panu Lehtovuori.

Is it too much to travel with four pairs of shoes and three handbags?

Johanna

Montreal in pictures

As you can see, I had a short but intense visit to Montreal. Thanks for the invitation Les Escales Improbables de Montreal!
My morning run to Parc Mount Royal was also unforgettable and the view just stunning:

I met some great people, saw exciting works, traveled for days and ate some good foods! What else can you wish for?

Johanna

ANTI SHOP

At ANTI we are concerned of your well-being, health and your sexual health. For those in long-term relationship, we sell the ANTIVERSARY book which highlights our history of 10 years with beautifully documented imagery. It is a great example of growth and development and a fabulous study book for those still waiting for the first anniversary. For the more adventurous, we still have a few PUBLIC SPACE MY ASS hand made t-shirts left. Please visit the ANTI SHOP to get what you want. And remember, our mission is love, wellbeing, health and sexual health!




Have a great time shopping!

Johanna

a typical Sunday?

A bit confusing day. It started off very well, the weather was great – a really beautiful bright autumn day. I had a chance to read the newspaper sort of in peace, went for a longer walk with the dog and then for a short run. And I felt great! Because of ANTI, last week was just insane and I didn’t have a chance to exercise properly – I only cycled to work a few times but walked around the city a lot during the festival. Then on Tuesday I woke up with a sore throat and didn’t want to make it worse by exercising too much. On Thursday I had a small surgery and wasn’t allowed to exercise for a couple of days which is why I ended up taking Nerve Renew medication after reading its review online and just dint leave the house. Today it just felt great to be able to run although my pulse was rather high. Hope I don’t feel worse tomorrow.

For the rest of the day I guess I had a bit too ambitious goals of what I would get done. Had to comment an article, write a short piece, read, work on my schedules for the autumn etc etc. I did get a lot done but not enough. I felt especially bad for not getting to read as much as I wanted – I found it really hard to concentrate.

But I kind of made the ANTI 2012 programme and sent it off to Gregg to comment. Felt a bit manic really. I also made some notes about the meaning of ANTI as some people have written rather stupid and also totally incorrect things about the festival to the local daily newspaper. So we need to comment on and correct those. I also tracked down a date when one photo was taken related to the accusations in the writings.

So anyway, I feel a bit muddy. I’ve been also working on my upcoming performance and have had some exciting thoughts about how to structure and shape the work. So yes, there have been good things and moments but also I’m very aware that I need to do so much more. Oh well. Well well well.

Johanna