Category Archives: Festivals

Too much work

The last weeks have been a bit too busy. With the ANTI –festival, our call for proposals is finishing today and you might be able to imagine the amount of inquiries and proposals that has been coming in. It’s exciting, yes, but sure keeps me busy!
I also haven’t had any free days as I was rehearsing with Jaana for the whole weekend. I’ve been writing grant applications, planning the TALKS and DEEDS programme for April with Gregg and dealing with ANTI’s call for proposals plus all legal stuff that has to do with running an association.

I don’t have anything to wear –performance brochure went to print last night and I’m pretty pleased with it. It’s going to be out next week.

Silja from the Domus kitchens sent me a few images of our kitchen today. So you have to imagine this

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tuukkanen-keittio.jpgtuukkanen-keittio-2.jpg
tuukkanen-keittio-1.jpg

To this space.

upstairs1_pos1.jpg
I must say I really look forward to cooking in this kitchen. I don’t know about you, but for me it’s as close as can be to the idea of a simple, yet strong and characteristic kitchen that fits to the Blue House.So in the middle of the busy day it was so refreshing to get a few pics from our future kitchen.
Recently, I have tried to get rid of at least some of my addictions. So I have quit ordering the Avotakka design magazine and Meidän Talo magazine. I don’t yet quite know how I’m going to fill up the emptiness that’ll leave into my life but I might survive.

Looking forward to your comments,
Johanna

Good day (got the grant and much more)

Today was a busy but quite an interesting and good day in the end. First, I got a very exciting email asking if I was interested in one international project (which I was) and in the evening I got a text message from the regional arts council of North Savo saying that I have been given a one year artist grant for 2007. This is good news, but to be perfectly honest, I had applied a longer grant and was quite disappointed that I didn’t get one. It just makes the long term planning and commitments so much more difficult as I have again no idea how I will fund my work in 2008.
But now is now, and things are definitely moving to the right directions. I’m sipping champagne (the cheapest you can get in Alko), called my mom and just finished working. I sent my DVD to Norway today, talked with Emma Puikkonen on the phone about continuing to perform Cosmetics and green peas (yes!) and had a great Skype session with Gregg about the Talks & Deeds programme and ANTI 2007 artists etc. So yes, it was all inspiring and exciting.
Working with Jaana over the weekend was great, as usual. It is so much fun, crazy and reaching and referring to so many directions and issues and traditions. I just love working with her and I really do hope that audiences will find the work and pick up all the contradicting statements we make in it. And I hope they will forgive me my all but perfect figure! No matter how hard I practice ashtanga, it just stays the same…
But I’m not letting my body, my weight, my intelligence, my financial situation or my age to stop me. It’s all going to be out there and it is only through them, that I can resist, contradict and point out the issues I, we want.

I’ll be waiting for your congratulations and flowers and other possible gifts. You know how to reach me.

Johanna

Longing, house, clothes, worries and www

Busy days since coming back from Glasgow. I’ve been a bit blue, missing Rebecca and Andrew, the presence of so many wonderful artists and general passion for live art. Nikki and Colin had once again created a fantastic festival with about 80 artists from around the world. At the moment I feel that the most important works for me to see and experience were by artists Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Rosie Dennis and also Nic Green who is a very young artist based in Glasgow. But I’ve found a touching naivety and sincerity in her works and a kind of romantic enthusiasm. I’ve seen two of her works and also her performing in Grace Surman’s piece in Bristol last year. There is something about Nic that I really like but at the same time something troubling, which is a nice feeling. There were lots of other interesting things and strong works, too many to list here. But one more has to be mentioned! The first time I saw Curious live with their new work (be)longing. It was very good to see and I found it really beautiful in its simplicity but it was kind of long. But I also saw it in the late evening having already watched works for about ten hours…so maybe it wasn’t the best time. But I really enjoyed it. Also some video works I’ve seen by them have been great. And of course Marcia Farquhar! She was just amazing and it was just amazing to see her work with an archive of her clothes.
I had very inspiring meetings and conversations with Daniel and Lois from the Live Art Development Agency. They were also very pleased with our decision to choose Gregg Whelan to be my co-artistic director which, acknowledging their experience on the field, I highly value. We also hope to work with them in the future.
It was also really great to meet with other live art festival producers from the UK, Belgium and France and I sense a great passion to promote live art and artists. Let’s see if we can be part of a live art focused EU-project in the future. It would be fantastic and I really hope we can find a way with ANTI to work it out.
It was fantastic to have Andrew and Rebecca over in Glasgow as well, although they didn’t present work in the programme. Last year they were artists in residence along with Richard Dedominici (who also has shown work at ANTI) and I must say I missed the kind of presence they brought to the NRLA last year. And there were so many other people I so much enjoyed seeing like Jennie Klein, Steven Hodge, Dominic Johnson, Manuel Vason, Deen, Eleine Kordys, Andrew from LADA etc….

When I flew to Glasgow, my luggage was lost for two days. What a nightmare! I had all my new great clothes with me that I didn’t get to wear because for the first two days I just had to wear the same clothes. Actually, I had to by lots of new toiletries (cleansing milk, tonic water, shampoo, toothpaste, deo etc.) and some new undies to survive. It’s a pain with the new hand baggage regulations. Well, luggage arrived finally and I got to wear my new boots, jacket and Ponten skirt which never goes unnoticed. And Andrew and Rebecca got their Nordic Walking sticks…

I’ll have a rehearsal period with Jaana next week and I’ve been booking some studios space for us and also just for me individually. Today I was supposed to send material to our graphic designer but I didn’t manage. I didn’t get our exact performance dates in Helsinki from Jaana yet, Pekka is still working on some photos and I decided to go and do some at the Blue House today. It was so great. At 1 pm the light in the house is so beautiful at the moment that I just had to take a few photos.

upstairs1

upstairs2

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yogaview

downstairs

Mladen, who has been and is working on my website, emailed me today and it’s all moving on at least a little bit now. There has been all kinds of obstacles on the way and Mladen has now moved to Sweden, but I hope you’ll have patience as we sure do our best to set it up. Backloading removal services were perfect too.

I still don’t know about the artist grant for this year from the regional arts council and it’s really depressing. I know I didn’t get anything from the Finnish Cultural Foundation and that also put me down. Sometimes I feel I’m too old for this kind of uncertainty. By this time, at 33, and having worked as an artist professionally for 10 years, after receiving a State Prize for the Arts among others, I should have a little longer time phrase than 9 months in which to develop work. Don’t you think I deserve it?

Johanna

Glasgow

…was fantastic! Well, I actually didn’t get to spend so much time in the city itself, but I had a great time. It was so good to visit NRLA again, see so many great artists and promoters and friends. This time around it was all very busy, lots of performances and durational pieces, many meetings and talks and discussions. Many projects planned and discussed. It all was so inspiring and exciting that it is almost scary to be back in Kuopio. Because life here is nothing like that. There is very little sense of support, enthusiasm, experimentalism. It was so great to meet people from all over the world who are so excited about ANTI –festival and find it extraordinary and fantastic that we do it each year. So do I get any vibes like that over here? The answer is no. None. But maybe it is also the cultural difference in behaviour and language. But I’m sure it is not only that. On my way back yesterday, I thought that maybe it is my destiny to move to Britain at some point. You know, in 1997 I was supposed to, but didn’t in the end because of love and my son. So maybe when I’m older, we’ll sell the Blue House and move to Britain. I already have suggested house swapping with some friends in London. The only hindrance at the moment is the fact that Blue House is not yet finished!
I went to the Blue House today with my daughter by bus. It was the first time we took a bus there and it wasn’t that bad. I was so exhausted that I didn’t really do any work there, I just watched Pekka and Juho working on the upstairs’ floor and I measured some walls and windows. It all looks very good but there is a lot of pressure time and money wise at the moment…
I need to get some sleep now. More about NRLA etc. is coming up in few days.

Hope you are all well.
Johanna

The column

was published today. For those of you who don’t get the Kuopion Kaupunkilehti, here it is (in Finnish):

“Kuka saa, kuka jää ilman?

Alkuvuosi on monelle piinallista odottelun aikaa. Lukuisat kolmannen sektorin toimijat ja taiteilijat odottelevat päätöksiä erinäisistä toiminta-avustuksista, apurahoista tai hankerahoituksista joku kaupungilta, toinen valtiolta, kolmas taidetoimikunnalta, neljäs lääninhallitukselta ja joku näistä kaikista. Toiminta on käynnissä tai ainakin sen pitäisi alkaa, mutta rahoituspäätöksiä ei vielä ole. Tilanne on monelle toimijalle vaikea. Miten rekrytoida ihmisiä töihin, millaisia sopimuksia uskaltaa tehdä ja kuinka paljon voivat työntekijät joustaa?
Ja mitä sitten kun päätökset tulevat? Jos avustusta ei tulekaan, miten käy suunnitellun toiminnan ja vireillä olevien hankkeiden tai projektien? Tai jos avustusta tuleekin, mutta vuosi toisensa perään se on toiminnan laajuuteen nähden riittämätöntä? Miten esimerkiksi taiteilijat, kulttuurialan toimijat ja yhdistykset pystyvät toteuttamaan pitkän aikavälin tavoitteita ja strategisia linjauksiaan ja tuottamaan valtakunnallisesti ja kansainvälisesti korkealaatuista ja kiinnostavaa sisältöä kun rahoitus on joka vuosi katkolla ja päätökset tulevat suunnitelmallisen toiminnan kannalta aivan liian myöhään?
Tuntuu, että monilta odotetaan kohtuuttoman suurta joustoa ja luottamusta huomiseen, ilman minkäänlaisia turvatakuita. Pelissä voi olla perheen toimeentulo, etenkin vastavalmistuneilla päätös asumispaikkakunnasta, kenties jonkun toisen työn vastaanottamatta jättäminen hankerahoituksen jatkumisen uskossa.
Vakituisessa työsuhteessa olevien lienee lähes mahdoton ymmärtää millaisessa tilanteessa useat korkeakoulutetut, Kuopion kaupungin imagolle ja vetovoimalle tärkeät kulttuuri- ja taidealan toimijat ja kolmannen sektorin organisaatiot ovat. Ja mitä nämä toimijat sitten ovat tehneet Kuopion imagon eteen? Tuottaneet esimerkiksi kansainvälisiä, valtakunnallisia tapahtumia, vauvoista vaareihin ja mummoihin kohdistuvia projekteja, useiden taiteen alojen teoksia, näyttelyitä ja esityksiä, vähemmistöryhmiin kohdistuvia hankkeita ja tietysti verotuloja. Ja monille, luoneet Kuopiosta innostavan paikan elää ja asua. Olisiko kohtuullista huomioida tällaisen voimavaran tarpeet hiukan paremmin ennen kuin toimijat vetävät johtopäätöksensä ja siirtyvät heitä paremmin huomioiviin kaupunkeihin tai maihin? Tutkimukset osoittavat, että kaupunkien vetovoimaa mitataan niiden tarjoamilla kulttuuripalveluilla. Osaamista täältä ei ainakaan puutu.”
ANTI -festival’s ex-producer Maija emailed me today which was a nice surprise of the day. She is currently in Göteborg in Sweden and I really miss her, in work and privately as well.

I’m off to National Review of Live Art next week and I’m really looking forward to seeing new work, meeting artists, producers, art officers and friends.

I bought with my daughter two DVD’s of Cold Feet today. Cold Feet was my absolute favourite series ever and when I bought the first season on DVD about a year ago I was delighted to watch it and cry in peace. Now I’m looking forward to new emotional trips.

Johanna

Schedules

There’s been a lot to arrange, schedules, rehearsal times, performance schedules, schedules for the new solo project with Maija Hirvanen and Pekka Mäkinen, ANTI –festival’s schedules with the new co-artistic director (I’ll let you now soon who s/he is) and with the Blue House and the family.
With the collaboration Mulla ei oo mitään päälle pantavaa (I don’t have anything to wear) we have now confirmed the premiere to be on the 15th of March and we’ll have four performances in Kuopio. Then we’ll perform on the 28th of March in Joensuu, in May 8-10 times in Zodiak, in Helsinki, and another two performances in June in Kuopio.
I wrote a column for the Kuopion Kaupunkilehti a couple of days ago. The paper is going to be out on Saturday for those of you who are interested.
I’m off to Glasgow next week and I’m really looking forward to seeing new works and meeting artists. I also have quite a few meetings scheduled already now.
Today, once more, I had a meeting with he Domus kitchen’s ladies, and I must say, it all looks very good. I’m very satisfied with their material, stuff and offer. It’s not exactly cheap, but it seems reasonable. I have to drag Pekka to look at the plans before we can make a deal with them, though.
It’s time to say good night now. Another long day tomorrow with writing grant applications and reports of last’s year’s grants.

Johanna

Fed up, out of job and without grant

Last couple of days have not been very special. Most of my time has gone into dealing with the local officials of ministry of labour. As my artist grant finished by the end of 2006 and so did my job, I have had to get all kinds of papers to prove that my artist grant is really finished and that my job did end (and proof why it ended). It’s a part time job to be out of job!
So it’s all been a bit frustrating. And the waiting for grant decisions and project fundings is not that great either.
Well, ANTI –festival got one funding decision today that didn’t make me smile. From the city of Kuopio the festival got the same amount than last year and since some project funding has stopped, all in all it means cuttings in the budget. Great. And the saddest thing is that the officials in the cultural office of Kuopio are more than well aware of our situation and there has been a lot of writings in the local media that the future of ANTI –festival has to be secured. So once again, the funders did nothing to help the
festival.
The mood now is waiting; waiting for personal grant decisions (will I be able to go on with my artistic work as I have planned?) and waiting for ANTI –festival’s budget to get confirmed. Waiting and waiting, wondering if I’ll have some form of income this year and at the same time working on the plans and projects without knowing if they’ll be funded or not.
Well, this is normal for many artists I guess, but it sure is tiring.

Some good news with I don’t have anything to wear, though. The performance space in Kuopio is now confirmed and we will perform the piece four times in the Gallery Carree in March. Great. We were also very well presented in the spring programme of Zodiak in Helsinki (where we’ll perform in May) with this image.
KleTu1_pos

Photo by Pekka Mäkinen.
Let me know what you think.
Johanna

Salt & vinegar & coffee

Yesterday was a good day. I was pretty effective with arranging rehearsal schedules, performance schedules, updating budgets, bringing my performance trousers to be fixed and my boots to be streched, practicing the primary series and eating and cooking healthy food. I haven’t been going to yoga classes for a while. I’ve been practicing on my own and attending Anne’s workshops and retriets, and one workshop with Guruji. But now I felt that I really could do with some assistance in difficult asanas as well as enjoy peacefull environment. The practice with Mari’s assistance was really enjoyable. And despite all my back problems, I was able to do the full primary series, which was a suprise. I’m glad I start rehersals with Jaana tomorrow because she’s practicing ashtanga as well and we can do the practice together. And of course, I’m really into entering the process again!
Because we work with clothes and all kinds of issues related around female appearance, and because I’m into all kinds of lists, I thought I list here every piece of clothing I have purchased since our last rehearsal period in the beginning of Dec.
For myself:
– boots (on sale -20%)
– a top (on sale -50%)
– a dress (on sale -30%)
– a belt
– a yoga top (on sale, don’t remember how much)

For my daughter:
– a dress (on sale)
– a top (on sale)
– a pear of jeans (on sale)
– a track-suit (on sale)
– mittens

For my son:
– underwear, 2 pieces, long

For my partner:
– underwear, 2 pieces

Not that bad, eh?

My partner and my daughter picked me up from the yoga class yesterday wiht a pleasant surprise. I package from our beloved friends in London Andrew and Rebecca! They sent us these lovely Hot Mugs designed by Sebastian Conran which I desired when we visited them in November. But it was not just the Hot Mugs they sent – they were filled with small packs of Salt&Vinegar crisps which I love!!! And you can’t buy them in Finland, who knows why… Andrew and Rebecca are about the most kind, friendly, beautiful and talented artists and friends that I’m aware of. Even my daughter said: Can’t we go and visit them in London tomorrow! And she also admired the mugs and their colors. So today I’ve had my cup of coffee from my new Hot Mug and enjoyed the crisps (no-one else was allowed to touch them) with some red wine. Heaven!
I bought a bottle of Taideviini (art wine) today because the label on the bottle is designed by young visual artist Paavo Halonen, who is a very close friend of writer – performing artist Emma Puikkonen with whom I collaborated on Physical artistic deeds 4; Cosmetics and grean peas. I’ve met Paavo only ones or twice briefly, last summer I guess. He didn’t come to see our performance (I guess Emma asked him not to – because of some “lesbian tendencies” which was a joke between them) but was intensively flirted by an artistic director at the time…

Well, work today has been less spiritual. Updating ANTI -festival’s website for about 10 hours and sending out call for proposals nationally and internationally for the rest of the time. So sitting by the computer far longer than is recommended for anyone.
Time to say good night.
Johanna