Category Archives: Personal

Season’s greetings

What a pleasure to spend relaxing days at home! The autumn has been busy and intense and I’ve been a lot on the road – traveling between Kuopio and Helsinki, rehearsing in Oulu, visiting Oslo, Barcelona, Berlin, Düsseldorf and Graz. If I remember correctly! It’s all been exciting and interesting but also very tiring. So I’m grateful for these easy days. I’ve had family around, enjoyed saunas and good food, cakes my daughter had baked, lovely chocolate treats and some presents. Bliss!
For ages I’ve wanted to have a facial treatment to clean and take care of my skin. Somehow there’s never time or money and I haven’t had a facial in years – which I’m ashamed to admit since I’m wearing makeup regularly and when performing, quite heavy ones also. So the other night I decided that I should do something about that and made a reservation for HydraFacial treatment at Beautyzone in Kuopio. And I’m so happy I did! I loved the treatment and my skin feels so different, cleansed, soft and the pores are visibly reduced. What I’m rather shocked about is that the woman who did the facial, diagnosed my skin as couperosa – prone to redness. This makes total sense and I don’t understand why I hadn’t thought about that before! So my uneven skin tone is not about poor skin care habits or bad products – it’s about redness that gets worse with aging and the freezing cold weather. I’m glad I’m aware of that now! I need to use good, hydrating, soothing and protecting products and apparently vitamin c is good for redness.
So since I’m in need of a night cream, I went to town today to check out the sales and to find a suitable cream. A salesperson at Sokos was very kind and gave me philosophy product samples to try which is just great because I’m not going to buy a new cream without testing it first.

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I’m especially interested in the miracle worker night cream but also the cleanser and eye treatment sounded great! Let’s see they feel on my skin.
Anttila had all the Lumene products (except the natural code) -40% off! I bought the basic but very good eye makeup remover, the loose translucent powder, nail varnish remover and a new color correcting concealer! Fab. Hopefully it’ll help me with my redness so that I can wear a very light foundation.

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Today I was first time using my Tom of Finland shopping bag by Finlayson- love the black and white simple style.

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I think it’s time to test the miracle worker night cream now!

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Good night!

Johanna

Melbourne day 2

Jetlag.
An early morning run/walk to St. Kilda. 11 km.
Strength training at the studio.
Alexander technique and stretching.
Music and a short improvisation.
Smoked salmon and feta salad.
Emails.
Facetime with my son.
Fireplace lit.
Non-representational theory.
A sleeping pill.

After a rather restless and sleepless night I went for an early morning walk/run/jog around Albert Park and St. Kilda. It was windy and raining on and off but I really enjoyed it. I was carrying my camera, iPhone and keys.


Johanna

2012

In 2012 I enjoyed immensely my return to the position of a choreographer in MAP OF SCARS. Directing a piece in which I don’t perform myself was a fantastic experience and I had a great team to work with. So thank you Sannamaria, Tuovi, Pirjo, Ainu, Tatu, Pekka and everyone who was part of that process.
Photo by Pekka Mäkinen.

I also really enjoyed creating Follow me with Rebecca French but was sad how little visibility the audio walk received. In Finland it still seems very difficult to create works outside the mainstream artistic forms and to get media’s or people’s interest to participate in works that are not in the ‘safe’ environment or form. As a contemporary artist, I think this is very sad and depressing.

Although it is sometimes difficult, I still feel that there’s a need and interest for my work and to improve the production processes and overall working conditions, I set up an organization called Live Umbrella with Pekka and Maija. I’ve postponed that for several years but now it’s the time to really give it a try!

I made several work trips in 2012. To Vienna, Gloucestershire, Montreal, Uppsala, Stockholm, Helsinki, Kajaani, London, Brussels…all the trips were really inspirational. The most exciting adventure was however to Montreal and I was so happy to visit the Les Escales Improbables Festival and meet many new collegues there. And my morning run to the Parc Mount Royal was unforgettable! The best teaching experience I’ve ever had was in Brussels at Cifas Summer University.

I had an unforgettable summer holiday with my children in London in the summer. We had such a great time and it was a much needed break for me. Thanks for our wonderful hosts Rebecca, Andrew & VP!!!!!

Although studying can and has been at times really hard and tiring, it has mostly been a true inspiration. I’m so happy I’ve gotten to know new amazing academics, thinkers, theorists and fellow students as well to deepen my own understanding and knowledge in the fields of cultural policy and art theory.

I saw some touching performances. 100% London by Rimini Protokoll, For Those Who Have Time by Maija Hirvanen and In Human Disguise by Eeva Muilu and Milja Sarkola made me cry.

Photo Pekka Mäkinen.

ANTI 2012 was a fantastic festival. It was a kind of a dream come true to have Annie Sprinkle & Beth Stephens, Heather Cassils, Kris Grey, Alejandra Herrera and Jukka Huitila in one festival – not to dismiss any artist at the great festival! Up To Nature project was also a great experience and I was very happy to collaborate with Thomas, Helen, Jon and Gregg on it. It was fantastic that Vilja joined the ANTI production team!

Photo Pekka Mäkinen.

During 2012 I still got a lot of happiness in my daily life from the shoes of Minna Parikka, exercising at Functional Team (now Element Studios), hanging out with friends, good Riesling wines and of course my family. I’ve had some health problems which have annoyingly effected my metabolism so somehow the year has not been a great improvement physically but more mentally and theoretically. And that has been great and more than welcome.

Looking forward to the challenges of 2013!


Happy New Year!

Johanna

 

I love pink and hate intriguers

The first pink flower on our backyard.
pinkflower

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My daughter noticed this one the other morning and dashed to see what it was like! Just a beauty, a miracle in the midst of the chaos.

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…ordered some mineral make-up that arrived today…

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kind of therapeutic in the middle of all the difficulties, questions, tasks, pain, work…

Had a conversation about the regional dance centre here and one person who thinks maybe a bit too highly of herself in relation to the dance centre. Who censors conversation, looks at art and dance with a quite narrow mind, who so strongly believes in her own view that cannot accept, acknowledge, respect, value or even listen to other views. Who thinks she’s always right. Who thinks she knows everything. I don’t really care about other people’s castles in the air but when they’re built in the costs of a larger community who this person thinks she has a right speak for without understanding, acknowledging, accepting or valuing the rest of the community, the differing opinions, then I just think it’s ignorant and quite stupid.

Johanna

thinking about kitchens

I had a meeting with Esa from Gatto kitchen in the morning. I have a pretty clear idea about our new kitchen that we have outlined with the architect of the Blue House Satu Ratinen. But still there are a lot of possibilities in terms of colours and shades, materials, equipment and all kinds of details. I’ve had meetings with three kitchen companies and now it seems that the choice is going to be between Domus and Gatto. In both cases, the material is pretty comparable, but the colour is somewhat different. In Gatto’s case the cupboards and boxes would be quite dark but in a kind of grey shade and in Domus’s plan the boxes below the work top would be black ash and the top cupboards from zebrano. In both plans the cold line would be from Festivo and from Gatto the other kitchen electronics from Smeg. With Domus we haven’t really decided on the oven, dishwasher etc. But I guess I still could by the Smeg dishwasher, oven and the cooker from Gatto even if I wouldn’t buy the cupboards.
Well, lot’s to think about. And the real issue here is that I’m so aware of the vast possibilities. If I didn’t order all the interior design magazines I wouldn’t know so much about all kinds of possibilities and materials. So I can only blame the decade long addict of ordering Avotakka, Koti ja Keittiö, Plaza, Living etc., deko, Meidän talo…!
I must say that one important thing for me is also the fact that Domus is a Finnish company and Gatto’s stuff is ordered from Italy. And since we are building an eco house, I definitely prefer the local suppliers – although that principle can be overruled for the sake of good design…

We have had a very unusual winter with no snow and temperature staying on top of the 0. Today wasn’t cold but it snowed a lot. It feels like all the snow we have missed since November fell down today. The kids are excited, of course.

We haven’t had time to visit my partner’s mom for about 9 months, but now we decided that we are going to visit her for the weekend and rest from the house building. So I’m looking forward to having saunas, sitting by the fireplace and enjoying the joy of my daughter spending time with her grandma.
Johanna

Welcome to my blog

Hello everyone, and welcome to my new blog. As you can see there is not much around here right now. However, this will change in the weeks and months to come. So, come back soon and often to read all about me and my work.
Johanna