I’ve been such a bad blogger recently! Just too busy and too many things to do plus I’ve been traveling a lot. Which has been really inspiring and great. I will get back to my recent trip to Montreal soon. And don’t forget the up coming ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival in Kuopio, Finland! It will be just great.
Johanna
It was lovely to be in Brussels. I really enjoyed the Cifas Summer University “Urbi et Orbi – Living Art, City and City Dwellers”. I taught a workshop ‘Activation of sites and interventions in public spaces at ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival’ and participated in a panel discussion ‘Forbidden and Allowed: Art and Urban Law’. There was such a nice group of participants, interested, excited and inspired! I had a great time.
I also got to do my usual Brussels activities such as eating mussels at La Pré Salé, have breakfast at Cafe de Markten, pop in the Cora Kemperman shop and of course, Pierre Marcolini. The trip was short, intensive but also fun. I was also brought to the Chez Maman, THE dragshow gay bar in Brussels with late night shows, since being gay is something normal now a days, and you can even find gay porn if you go to certain sites online. It was a tiny but very busy place and Maman herself gorgeous!
Early morning in Brussels.
On my way to la bellone.
Benoit & Antoine.
My students working on a site specific task.
And another group busy with their task.
Panel discussion on Party or Mind.
I’m not a chocoholic but Pierre Marcolini’s chocolates are the best I’ve ever tasted. Truly amazing! And I just learned that they ship everywhere in Europe…
Johanna
I spent four days at the Kokko1721 residency in Kangasniemi in the end of July. I was invited by the owners of the farm, Jukka and Saila and their son Roope. As part of the residency, I contributed to a video diary creating a performance in response to the site, the place and the activities there – being there, sensing and feeling the site and my own body in there. I do not have photos of the actual work I created but it turned out to be very feminine, sensual, sensory…almost dream like and I did it in a greenhouse.
Here are some pictures from the farm and of some activities there….
I slept in ‘aitta’, a log house without electricity – what a great place to sleep in the summer. Cool and dark!
Performance material…
Strawberry pie…
Virma
I had a great time. Very inspiring. Thank you.
Johanna
We spent a few days in Hailuoto in the end of July. Justiina wanted to go swimming although it was really windy and not warm at all… and she did swim in the sea! I was also curious to see the new cottages that have been built in Marjaniemi. They are a bit more modern than the traditional fishing cottages but I was expecting them to be even a bit more contemporary. You can have a glimpse of them on the video. The video is not good and the wind makes a terrible sound but the landscape in Marjaniemi is very nice and I couldn’t believe how Justiina just enjoyed the sea…
Johanna
Justiina & her new shoes at night in London, July 2012.
Oh we had such a great time!
Johanna
I had a work related trip to Gloucestershire in the end of June/beginning of July and spent a week after that in London starting my summer holiday from ANTI stuff.
Did some nice things and had a great time. Thanks to our hosts Rebecca & Andrew & VP and thanks to all our friends Daniel, Jonathan, Joshua, Kris, Richard, Bryony, Season – it was so lovely to see you all!
We saw the Queen’s diamonds at Buckingham Palace, the Damien Hirst exhibition at Tate Modern, visited the London Transport Museum and Sir John Soanes’s Museum, wondered about in Harvey Nichols, Harrods (didn’t like it all!), Liberty and some cheaper places like Columbia Road, Brick Lane, Laden Showroom, Tatty Devine, Uniqlo, Topshop, M&S, Monsoon, Primark, ate some Lola’s handcrafted cupcakes, great Vietnamese in Shoreditch, good Thai on Bricklane and Turkish on Broadway Market, cheap lunches on Spitalfields Old Food Market, Camden Market and Soho… Oh, we had such a great time!
On the Millenium Bridge
Spot the brand new Shard, tallest building in Europe
The most beautiful girl in the world at the Thistledown Farm, Stroud, Gloucestershire
Birthday cakes at Harrods
But we got some LOLA’s handcrafted cupcakes
At the Buckingham Palace after seeing the Queen’s diamonds
In front of the Sir John Soane’s Museum. It’s free & great! Go if you can!
London Transport Museum
In Camden
Hanging out on Vyner Street, first Thursday of the Month
Dinner on Broadway Market
Oh what a great time we had! London, we will miss you!!!
Jxxx
Aargh, been traveling and away from home a lot and haven’t had time for regular work outs. So my run yesterday was pure bliss, followed by kettle bell work out! The sun was shining and my new Nike free trainers were excellent. Check out the Liikkeelle event in Argoshalli in Stockmann where there are a lots of running gears presented until the 15th of April. And the Nike free trainers are on sale!
I’ll post something about the trip to Lyon & Paris later but I brought home these gorgeous French mustards… Very tasty with some chevre and rye bread!
Johanna
As you know, I passed through the Helsinki airport about a week ago on my way to and back from Vienna. I’ve been so disappointed to the airport ever since the Finnish Design Shop shut its doors at the airport. The Finnish Design Shop was the only shop having any contemporary Finnish design besides Marimekko. At the moment, there are no proper design shops at the airport. So no Finnish in furniture, clothing, accessories, shoes or anything like that. Ok, you might say that yes, there’s Marimekko and Pentik, but I’m talking more about contemporary, innovative design. Yes, Marimekko does represent that to a certain extent but most of the fabrics are from the 1960s or 1970s and although I do like Marimekko, many of the products are very classic or even retro. So as I spent a few hours at the airport, I was once again rather shocked that firstly, only pieces of design you can spot are classic Danish chairs and Italian lamps, secondly, there are no shops representing solely Finnish design whether furniture, glassware, clothing or accessories, and third, that there are no interesting, reasonably priced places to eat. And this is during the Helsinki Design Capital year???? Somebody, do something!!!! So you cannot find products by Harri Koskinen, Julia Lundsten, Minna Parikka, Lumi Accessories, Jolier… Compared to Copenhagen or even Stockholm, Helsinki airport sucks.
Johanna
Last weekend I was in Vienna, Austria, in one of our EU project meetings, UP TO NATURE. I left of Friday which was the beginning of the skiing holiday in Kuopio. The Kuopio airport was packed at 5.30am with wealthy families travelling to skiing holidays either in Lapland or somewhere in the Alps. I have never ever been able to take my family on a skiing holiday and I must say, I felt a bit jealous. I realized, once again, very concretely, that there are all these people who can afford to take their whole family on holidays (and have all the expensive skiing gears along) – in fact, for them is normal to take family holidays at least once a year abroad. I also realized that instead of having a proper skiing holiday, I was on a work trip for the weekend. Never mind that, because I really, really, enjoyed our meeting. It was great, useful, inspiring and informative. So thank you so much Thomas, Olivia and Nicole at brut Vienna and Helen & co and Hedda, Philip & co for a great meeting. We have created a great project and I’m really looking forward to the outcome. Unfortunately, I’m not able to make it to the first festival in Vienna, but I am planning to visit Bristol in June and Oslo in August. How exciting!
I also went to the opening of Imagetanz and saw a very strange performance…
Like I said, we are having the skiing holiday here but Vienna was very summer like already. It’s so strange to be located literally on the edge of Europe and see weird middle European road signs like this way to Budapest and this way to Prague… This was my second time to stay in hotel Fürstenhof, the strange but nice old fashioned simple hotel. This time I had a nice & spacious room and I slept surprisingly well. We also had some lovely dinners & drank some gorgeous Riesling and Grüner Veltlieners so I had a great time in Vienna! And I spoke some German, feeling very proud of myself.
Although I just received excellent grades from the economics of culture course and exam, please have a look at this wonderful article (in Finnish) by theatre director Esa Leskinen about why art shouldn’t bring any economic benefits!
In general, I have felt rather depressed recently as I haven’t received any project funding to produce my upcoming works. So I’m facing the same old same old questions of what to do, if to do then how or not do at all. Very inspiring start for new productions!
For the sake of the international women’s day, I wore Minna Parikka’s fuchsia Women are dangerous animals boots and went with my daughter to see a wonderful dancer Tuovi Rantanen performing a solo by the wonderful choreographer Ervi Siren. Women rule!
Johanna
Was teaching dance critique in Kajaani this weekend and really enjoyed it a lot. Inspiring conversations, lots of short choreographies as part of Kajaani Dance weekend, many collegues and good talks with Kira Riikonen and Sonja Pakalén for example. Busy and tiring but a great weekend!
Now waiting to get the results of the Finnish presidential elections…. As you may know, I’ve been in the support groups of Pekka Haavisto so it’s very exciting to see how the Finns have voted in the second round. But whatever the result, Pekka is the winner of these elections. He has brought very important issues into public conversation and I’m forever grateful for him for that. Pekka photographed with me in one of his campaign events in Kuopio by Savon Sanomat photographer Marko Happo:
Johanna
