Author: Silvia Costantini

Categories
Art Exhibitions

Julie Myers: to travel somewhere

{mosimage}The Kunsthalle Helsinki Studio (Nervanderinkatu 3) hosts until March 30th the results of a very interesting project developed in 2007 by Julie Myers.

 

T

o travel somewhere was developed as a phone/walking project involving San Francisco, Cambridge and Helsinki, where the artist started a journey by asking passers-by about their favorite places in the city. Following indications that directed her to swimming pools, bars, parks, museums, markets Myers collected images, videos, sound files and texts on her mobile and developed itineraries for the three ciries. the material was then loaded onto the project website ( http://www.julie9.org ) and given GPS coordinate so that the itineraries could be traced on a world map.

 

The result is a vivid emotional portrait of each city, and the chance to discover places through the memories of other people, a portrait that reveals what we consider important marks in our daily life environment and landscape. The exhibition comprises the seven videos taken in Helsinki and the website, where the walks in the other cities are visible, thus offering the possibility of discoverig emotional similarities among the three quite different cities.

Kunsthalle Helsinki (www.taidehalli.fi), until March 30th

 

Categories
Art Features

When sculpture and architecture dialogue

It is said that the Finnish architect Viljo Revell considered his buildings to be complete only when a Henry Moore sculpture was part of them. And all year round visitors can admire the Reclining figure on a pedestal by H. Moore at Villa Didrichsen, designed by V. Revell. But from the 9th of February visitors of the Villa Didrichsen are also able to admire an interesting selection of works by the renowned 20th century British sculptor, collected in the exhibition The challenge of architecture.

Henry Moore sculpture

As the title clearly states, the focus is entirely on those sculptures that are either placed in architectural settings or somehow connected with architecture. On display are, among the others, masterpieces like the Archer, that Moore sculpted in white marble, and subsequently used as a model for the sculpture with the same name placed in Nathan Phillips square in Toronto, facing Revell’s City Hall; the working model for the Hill Arches, placed in 1973 in front of Fischer von Erlach’s Karlskirche in Wien; the working model for Three piece n. 3: vertebrae, now gracing the plaza of Dallas city hall (project by I.M. Pei).

The relationship between architecture and sculpture is explored in different facets: part of the exhibition is devoted to Moore sculptures and the architectural settings they are placed in. Another section is more intimate, the sculptures being placed in the part of the villa the Didrichsen used to live in. Here the visitor can see how harmonious and surprising is the interplay between, for instance, Square form with cut, whose enlarged version was on display in Florence at the Forte Belvedere in 1971, and the villa itself. Anita Feldman, the curator of the exhibition and of the Henry Moore Foundation, explain that after considering for a while whether to place this particular piece in the Villa’s garden, she opted for putting it inside, under a huge skylight, the opening on the villa’s ceiling echoing the one in the sculpture. Ms Feldman also points out the architectural quality of most of Moore’s works: of course you can walk around them, but most of the time you can actually walk through them, as if they were proper architectural spaces, with their lights and inner and outer spaces.

Henry Moore sculpture

It’s therefore quite interesting to get to know how the collaboration between the architects – Revell, Pei but also Marcel Breur – and Moore developed. Moore didn’t work on commission: it was rather the architect who visited the sculptor studio and was somehow left to choose among already existing sculptures what would suit the architecture he had in mind, somewhat reversing the connection/relation between architecture and sculpture.

The exhibition is a great occasion to get acquainted with the work of one of the greatest 20th century artists. Or, for those who are already familiar with his work, to discover a new dimension to his art: the ability “to dialogue with intimate domestic spaces” that Mary Moore, the sculptor’s daughter, is pleased to highlight.

Henry Moore: the Challenge of architecture
The Didrichsen Art Museum 9.2. – 28.9.2008
TUE-SUN 11-18 WED 11-20 (1.6.-31.7. • 11-18)

Written by Silvia Costantini

Categories
Features Music

Folk you!

{mosimage}For the 13th time, over 3,000 people got together in January with 77 folk bands and 36 folk dance groups for a 24hours folk-cruise. Folklandia could be your sweetest dream…or your worst nightmare!

900 performers coming from six different countries – Finland and Sweden of course, but also Denmark, Great Britain, Hungary and Russia – singing playing and dancing from 7,30 in the afternoon, the time the ferry leaves from Turku, to 4 pm the following day. Thankfully, for the organizer Pispalan Sottisi, the term folk comprises quite a lot, from old fashioned Finnish violin music to popular melodies from Eastern Africa to Scandinavian Tex-Mex.

Folklandia-cruise takes place the second weekend in January and is usually full-booked almost a year beforehand.. This year it was on the 11th and 12th of January. The amount of people getting down form buses and gathering at the port was quite astonishing, considering also that most of them were definitely young, a lot of them teenagers.

The organizers provide everybody with a detailed program of the festival, giving additional info about the performers. Nevertheless their amazing variety makes you feel a bit in trouble when it’s time to choose what to go and see, just as if you were in front of a buffet table, hungry enough to feel like eating everything, but with just a normal-sized dish in your hand.

From Carelian dimension to Swedish delight
So, in order to taste a bit of everything, the evening started with Bill Hota and the Pulvers, who have been defined as the Sex Pistols of Finnish folk music, mainly because of their lyrics. Interesting but not really exciting, the more so since the roughness of the lyrics is not entirely perceived by the ear of a foreigner!

Much more interesting were the Folkswagen, who sing theirs personal folk rock in three languages, Finnish, Russian and Carelian. The group was founded some 8 years ago, their music a sort of Eastern country music clearly influenced by their ‘social’ interest in Russia and Carelia. The lyrics deal with lost Russian girlfriends and today’s hang over, or bitterly describe Finnish vodka-tourism. The singer, Timo Munne, looks your ordinary next door guy but when singing turns into a sort of charismatic figure, supported by a band who’s certainly professional and passionate. Not to be missed are the soviet pins on the singer’s vest!

A short run to another deck allowed you to get familiar with Ranarim from Sweden, or as they pointed out Skåne. Beautiful female voices – the two singers perform as if they’ve been on stage for ever – and actually the band has toured extensively in Europe and oversea – energetic and enthusiastic musicians turn the short set into a lively, powerful and very enjoyable spectacle.

The Yön tanssit again showed how the word folk can assume the most different meaning: from the local folk groups of amateurs to the hilarious Absolut Finland, two dancers clad in suites right from Starsky and Hutch describing Finland and its custom and tradition in a satyrical and entertaining way

Early morning hours were devoted to more rockish bands: not so memorable Celtic influenced Dagàn, and Pohjannaula, whose rock is flavored with ‘sciamanist influences’.

When the last band finishes, at 5.30 am, nobody would bet that in a couple of hours musicians would start performing again, in every corner available, while the audience rushes to the buffet restaurant, the cafes and the duty free, eager to get their cans of beer before getting back to Turku.

Categories
Interviews Misc

Four decades of provocation

You were born in a small countryside town, Somero. How was it to grow up there?
During my first ten years I was often sick, and because of that my mother and I used to visit Helsinki very often. So I got a taste of the big city quite early. About my Somero years, I appreciate mostly my school time. Our headmaster was an exceptional person. He commanded fifteen languages, even though he claimed he could only speak Esperanto and Finnish. And that’s why Esperanto was compulsory in our school. Five years after the headmaster retired, the teaching Esperanto disappeared from Somero schools. It’s a pity because if Somero could have boasted of something, it would have been schoolboys speaking Esperanto. I have even written some songs in Esperanto, but I’m not an Esperantist: they’re so keen on their hobby, and that disturbs me a little bit.
 

At least two other very famous musicians have also come from Somero.
Right. Unto Mononen, the tango composer. I played in his orchestra. I got to know him when I was a student in Helsinki. I started to be interested in Finnish tango and in tangos by Mononen and he was so popular at the time. And the other one is Rauli “Badding” Somerjoki. We started collaborating and he sang on some of my albums. Then he asked me to produce his own rock single, which I did, and a rock album. Two weeks after releasing ‘Fiilaten ja höyläten’, it went to no.1 in the Finnish chart, where it stayed almost a year.

A year of turning point

It seems that 1966 was a very important year; a sort of turning point.
It was the important year of my provocations! At last I succeeded in provoking the whole of Finland by singing those sexual manuals at the Jyväskylä Summer Cultural Festival. This actually helped very much later when I wanted to do something else, and I started to sing classical music. I sang a song by Franz Schubert live on the Finnish TV: a shock. And it was exactly what I meant it to be.
Then I met the poet Markku Into and we started the Suomen Talvisota project. And in October that same year I was at the Turku Youth Festival, singing Wittgenstein’s “Tractatus”. The sixties are quite easy to remember but already the seventies are much more difficult: I was doing so many different things at the same time. Films, music, writing…

What was the common denominator?
The wish to provoke, of course.

So are you still into provoking the audience?
Of course. I provoke in a totally different way than earlier. I provoke my own friends and people my age. In the 60s I provoked old people and in the 21st century I still provoke old people. These are the same people who grew up with my provocations, and are themselves often quite good at provoking too. But then most of them are nowadays quite old fashioned and they think in an old fashioned, conservative way. I can provoke in many ways.

{mosimage}Stories of detectives and drunkards

You wrote two books whose titles sound quite curious: Etsivätoimisto Andrejev & Milton (Detective Agency Andreyev & Milton) and Baarien Mies (The Beer Bar Man).
The first is a detective story. I wrote it with Markku Into and it was ‘built’ in a very strange way: in the epistolary style. We were making fun of detective novels, and our own is very odd indeed. Suffice it to say that there’s no ending whatsoever.
Baarien mies has an interesting origin. In 1984 it was still forbidden to perform pop music during Easter time. I was in Sotkamo and could not perform. I stayed there some days and visited a bar several times. I became interested in this bar and the ‘way of life’ connected to it. I thought I would suggest the subject to a real sociologist. Then I thought he or she would never get enough money to travel around Finland and no scholarship would be available for such a drinking subject, so I chose myself to be the writer. My wife was with me: she was my driver but also my ‘memory’, as from time to time she had to remind me about the place and what had happened the evening before as I had drunk so much.

How are you planning to shock your audiences at the moment?
The first album in collaboration with DJ Sane will be released in May. It took three years as the material is so uncommercial: no dance, no pop, no rock. But it has very strong and heavy rhythms and sounds like it is from the rock and ambient world but not precisely from that. But I’ve other plans: the Swedish novel. And I’m composing a chamber music work about the Swedish domination that finished in 1909. It’s been commissioned for next year, 2008, so that it anticipates the centennial.

For a detailed biography of M.A. Numminen visit www.ma-numminen.net

M.A. Numminen will perform in Helsinki on 22 May at the Design Museum, Korkeavuorenkatu 23, Helsinki

Categories
Art Features

The Lusto Museum in Punkaharju

In 1843, the Punkaharju State Forest was established and in 1990 the ridge was declared a protected area, with the approval of the Act founding the Punkaharju nature conservation area.
 

It’s not surprising, then, that the Finnish Forest Museum, Lusto, is located right here. The museum, opened to the public in June 1994, is entirely devoted to illustrate the Finnish forests, their importance and the interaction and relationships between Finns and their forests.

The museum is shaped in such a way as to remind a tree section, and a few huge windows allow the visitor to have a glimpse of the beautiful landscape. Inside, the basic permanent exhibition ‘Discovering the forest’ shows how the Finns have lived off the forests over the centuries. A whole section is devoted to log floating, which in the 1920s and '30s gave work to almost 100,000 men –even though only for a few weeks. Old photographs and a display of the tools used by log floaters help to understand the harshness of the work.

Lusto museum

Another interesting section deals with popular beliefs. For centuries, forests, in addition to supporting people with food, heating and even clothes, were believed to host many kinds of magical creatures, sometimes evil, sometimes helpful. In this section a karsikko is on display. In Finnish folklore a karsikko is a conifer tree with some branches cut off in memory of a special occasion or event. Often the date of the event and the initials of the people involved were carved on the tree. The karsikko on display comes from Lapland where it was grew from the 15th century to 1940.

Beside 'Discovering the forest' other temporary exhibitions are organized every year. This year, starting from April 27th, ‘Finn horse – work horse’ will celebrate the 100th birthday of the Finnish horse. On June 15th and 16th the Forest Culture Days will take place, with competitions in logging and log floating, work demonstrations, hands-on workshops, concerts, theatre performances, presentations and information sessions.

Lusto, The Finnish Forest Museum, Lustontie 1, 58450 Punkaharju
www.lusto.fi

Categories
Art Features

The Year of South Korea

Since 1997 the festival has been exploring different Asian cultures: from Indonesia to China, to India and –last year– the countries hit by the 2005 tsunami.
Asia in Helsinki is the only Finnish festival devoted to Asia, and the organizers put a great deal of effort into selecting the themes and the performers. “We tend to choose according to first-hand knowledge, groups and performers we have already seen in action,” says the festival's Managing Director Veli Rosenberg.

The festival usually focuses on performing arts, such as ballet, drama and music, but thanks to collaboration with the Museum of Cultures exhibitions relevant to the festival's theme are being organized every year. This year is the turn of ‘Korean home – the way of living’ open till the end of December 2007.
Two are the 2007 festival highlights, according to Rosenberg: Hee Dong, a group of ten Buddhist monks and nuns performing ritual dances, which has been highly praised in Europe and the States. And the NOW dance company, led by young choreographer Sohn In-young, and their merging of traditional dances with contemporaries choreographies.

{mosimage} 

South Korea has been chosen for having been a cultural bridge between China and Japan for centuries, a place where it is still possible to find dance forms already vanished in the other two countries. The roots of South Korean culture are in shamanism and that will be reflected in the performances of the artists present at the festival.

“The festival’s aim is not so much to attract huge audiences,” Rosenberg states, “it is rather to offer interesting performances and an opportunity to get to know also the background. Before the show, the public can hear an introduction about the art and the artists, so they are given a context, a background in which to set the performance.”

The venue has always been the Aleksanterin Teatteri – the former Helsinki Opera Theatre. “That is the perfect venue for the festival," says Rosenberg, "it has 450 seats, with wonderful acoustics. Performers don’t need to use microphones most of the time. And it’s an intimate and beautiful theatre.”

Asia in Helsinki – Aasia Helsingissä, Helsinki Aleksanterin teatteri, 3rd-5th May 2007
For further details and the program:

www.kulttuuri.hel.fi/aasia 

Categories
Interviews Music

Streching the limits

Pohjonen started his career at a very early
age: at 8 he was already playing folk music. After classical and folk music
studies at the Sibelius
Academy, he spent time in
Tanzania
and Argentina,
studying with local musicians. His musical history now spans over twenty years
and in genres as diverse as avant-garde, folk, improvisation, classical, and
dance music. Furthermore, he has collaborated with the likes of the Kronos
Quartet. He is currently touring Finland – and in March the States –
as a member of KTU: a group also comprising of Trey Gunn and Pat Mastelotto. As
almost any review of his performances states: Pohjonen is far from your typical
idea of an accordion player; from the most obvious of the details, his hair – a
sort of reinterpretation of the Mohawk – to his way of being on stage and
playing his instrument. He’s been named several times ‘musician of the year’ in
Finland
and won several awards: the Finnish Jussi award for best film score (for the
movie Jade Warrior) being the last.

Let’s start our talk with this Jussi award. Composing music for
movies – was it your first time with Jade Warrior?
Actually, I did have previous experience, but it was something
different: the score for a Russian movie called Majak (The Lighthouse). In the case of Jade
Warrior, when the director called in November 2005 and asked me if I was
interested in composing the score I was not so sure –  at the beginning. Then, at home, I sort of
realized that a tune was already there. And in the end, it became the main
musical theme of the movie.

Already there? Meaning you didn’t have any ‘visual prompts’ – any
image or cut from the movie when composing the score – only the director’s
words?
Yeah. In that sense I can say that composing Jade Warrior’s score was not so different for me from my other
composing experiences. I don’t rely so much on images when I compose. And
anyway I was working with Samuli Kosminen…

{mosimage}Samuli Kosminen is one of the members of the KTU project: you’ve had
a number of different collaborators – all of them quite surprising and
interesting – how do you choose the musicians you’d like to work with?
Well, with Samuli, I just asked him. He’s a sort of a kindred soul:
he’s as experimentally inclined as I am. So it was quite natural to consider a
collaboration with him. In the case of the Kronos Quartet, I should say it was
not me who approached them… but rather, they approached my manager, Phillip
Page. You know, Phillip is definitely more than a manager and he’s been
instrumental in quite a lot of my collaborations with other artists: one of my
first projects was with Arto Järvelä, together we are the Pinnin Pojat; and one
of the main features of our collaboration is the freedom to improvise. The last
time we performed together, we rehearsed for a really short time and then just
went on stage: curious to see, and listen to, what would happen. And for
instance, the level of improvisation is 100% with Eric Echampard, the French
percussionist. 

I understand that improvisation
is a keyword for you, but I’m just wondering how did it work with the Tapiola
Sinfonietta: you collaborated with them on your Kalmuk project some years ago.
I made it clear from the very beginning what I had in mind, so that
all those who were not at ease with the idea of playing without the score in
front of them or, say, having to run in circles while playing could quit before
the real thing got started. I wanted the musicians to play without the score so
that they could be more free to listen to each other: to move with the music…
of course at the beginning it was not easy: not even for those who had decided
to stay.

Freedom is another keyword for
you
My main concern is to explore – explore the sounds my instrument can
utter, with the support of sound machines, voice, etc. When I’m on stage, I
improvise and I usually go on playing without breaks – without pauses for the
clapping of hands. I definitely value the reaction of the audience, but on the
other hand I have this feeling that I need to keep myself free from an excess
of feedback: I’m on the stage to create something, an atmosphere, and I don’t
think I should be too much influenced by the reaction of the audience.

How have places influenced you?
You have spent time studying abroad…
I was in Tanzania for a
few months and in Argentina.
I guess that’s when I perceived my being a Finn. You know, my favourite time
for composing is winter: with the deep darkness, the snow. I come here to my
studio in the morning and it’s dark: I get out in the evening and it’s dark.
Then comes the spring and I just start feeling like doing something else:
spending time outside. Winter is my creative season.

One last question: in Italy there’s a
small town called Castelfidardo, which is known as the world capital of the
accordion industry. I was wondering if one of your accordions comes from there…
It might be. But by now I’ve made so many changes and modifications
that it hardly has any original part left. And look, the bellows are breaking
again.

Categories
Art Exhibitions

Sleeping beauty and other stories

There couldn’t be better words to describe
the pictures in the Sleeping Beauty
section of Jaana Partanen’s exhibition Arjen alkemiaa (Everyday Alchemy)
currently at the Finnish
Museum of Photography. A
bunch of old ladies framed in silver, against a silver background, are holding
glasses of wine or laundry baskets and leaning against a rollaattori– this very
Finnish ‘institution’ for old age – smiling and laughing or playing with a lot
of arms and a lot of hearts The silver backgrounds and frames turn the ladies
into goddesses of the third-age: but oh, so wonderfully ordinary. Looking at
these pictures you just can’t help thinking that beauty is not just a matter of
being young!

Sleeping beauty, the Real Princess and
Cinderella is the title of the trilogy Partanen had been working on since
2001 and finished just before this exhibition: now it is being shown for the
first time.

{mosimage}If Sleeping Beauty deals with old
age, then the Real Princess investigates, in a touching and unconventional
way, the relationship between mothers and teenage daughters. In the photographs
taken underwater – and the accompanying video – the dance-like quality of the
movements of the mothers and daughters graphically describes the difficulties
mothers experience in letting their daughters go; and the conflicting attitudes
of the daughters: ready to state their independence and yet still in need of
their mothers’ hugs.

Fatherhood, family life and birth are
investigated in the section of the exhibition called Cinderella. Here the
focus also seems to be on fathers and the active role they are increasingly
taking in the family. In Partanen’s works, family life is made up of close relationships
and moments so precious – even if it is just washing dishes – that they deserve
gilded backgrounds.

The trilogy also includes three video works (Once Again, Crystal City
and Bubbles) which deal with
issues of deconstruction and rebuilding. Visitors can make a contribution to
the issue: an installation, right at the entrance of the exhibition area,
allows them to move simple gilded forms, thus changing and reshaping them into
new landscapes.

Everyday
Alchemy will be on display until the 5th of May. A
visit is highly recommended.

Jaana Partanen – Arjen alkemiaa (Everyday
Alchemy)
Finnish Museum of Photography – Cable Factory, Tallberginkatu 1 G Helsinki

Categories
Features Music

Open your ears

Since its first
edition in 1981 – at the time it was called Helsinki Biennale – Musica Nova has
focused on introducing contemporary music from all over the world to the
Finnish audience. And judging from some of the musicians who have been
participating in the festival the mission has been, so far, brilliantly
accomplished. Over the years one of Musica Nova’s main features has been the
choice of offering a great variety of contemporary music, from jazz to chamber
music to choral concerts to electronic music.


{mosimage}
This year the festival will turn 26. Also, this year marks the 90th anniversary
of Finland
as an independent republic and the 125th anniversary of two institutions of
paramount importance in the cultural life of Helsinki and the whole country – the Sibelius Academy and the Helsinki Philharmonic
Orchestra. Thus it’s probably not by chance that Musica Nova’s 2007 program
focuses on Finland, offering the opportunity to get familiar with the country’s
composers and performers, and the work of some of those artists who have come from
abroad to study and work in Finland.

The festival will take place from the 10th to the 17th of March in several Helsinki
venues (all listed in the festival website: where you can also find detailed
information about programme and tickets), and boasts several very interesting
premiers, as for instance Kimmo Hakola’s
L’or d’Azur, Kaija Saariaho’s
cello concert Notes on the light, the Concerto for orchestra by Jukka Tiensuu. But this year at Musica
Nova there will be space also for modern dance with Kwaidan, composed by
Pehr Henrik Nordgren and
coreographed by Mia Malviniemi, and
for the series of Focus concerts featuring such artists as Matthew Whitthall, Paavo Heininen, Lauri Kilpiö and Perttu Haapanen.

Categories
Art Features

Villa Didrichsen: architecture and art

{mosimage}

The museum is a masterpiece in itself. Because of the architecture: like many other buildings by famous Finnish architect Viljo Revell, Villa Didrichsen is not just another L-shaped building but a perfect blend of art, architecture and nature. And because of the location: built in 1957 on the shore of the Laajalahti, the villa enjoys a beautiful vista of the sea.

The history of the Didrichsen museum dates back to 1942 when Gunnard Didrichsen, a Danish businessman living and working in Helsinki, and his wife Marie-Louise bought a painting called ‘Ateria’ painted in 1899 by Pekka Halonen. At first, the couple focused on Finnish art of the 19th century, but they grew more and more interested in more modern paintings. In time, and sometimes with the help of Aune Lindstrom, at the time director of Ateneum, the Didrichsens ventured to purchase masterpieces like Pablo Picasso’s Artist at work, Wassily Kandinsky’s Church in Murnau, Fernand Léger’s Nature morte à la coupe, whilst increasing their collection of Finnish artists with the works of the likes of Helene Schjerfbeck – whose exhibition last year collected an impressive number of visitors and will soon tour Europe.

At the beginning of the '60s the Didrichsens also started collecting pre-Columbian and Eastern art pieces, now on display in the museum. In 1963 a foundation was settled to take care of the works of art and in a few years a new wing was added to the villa built by Revell. In September 1965 the museum was opened to the public, who could thus contemplate the family’s masterpieces. Already in 1968 it hosted the first exhibition with loans from other museums and galleries.

“The family was at the time living in the villa and Marie-Louise took care of the museum, from exhibits organization to tickets sale” tells Maria Didrichsen, head of exhibitions: “the last exhibition she organized before dying in 1988 was a Henry Moore memorial exhibition in January 1987. It was one of the first organized in the whole world, and the Didrichsen museum was able to do it because of the personal friendship that linked Moore and the Didrichsen family”.

Henry Moore’s masterpieces will return to Didrichsen in spring next year. Meanwhile, from January 27 to July 17 the museum will host Nella luce italiana – Italian valossa, a collection of paintings by Elin Danielson-Gambogi, a Finnish painter born in 1861, who lived part of her life in Italy. The exhibition will offer an opportunity to see paintings never shown before in Finland and to learn more about another interesting woman painter.

Categories
Features Music

Ourvision, (Y)our Music!

OurVision, Caisa’s new enterprise and its biggest production to date, is a song contest for all the artists coming from the continents ‘left out’ of Eurovision.

It was Caisa’s director Johanna Maula who first considered the possibility of organizing a musical contest that would offer artists from non-European countries the chance to perform live.

The host of the contest will be California-born TV star and model -and member of OurVision steering committee- Aria Arai, who’s been living in Finland for 12 years. She explains that the catchy name of the competition, OurVision, indicates that musical talents from every corner of the globe are invited, and suggests a wider and less sterotyped musical scenario.

The deadline for submitting entries to the competition is December the 11th, while OurVision will start on the 19th of January. The participants, who don't necessarily need to have previous experiences in the field, will go through a series of trials and semifinals, organized according to their area of provenance: musicians from Latin America, Arab countries, Asia and Africa will perform in the LatinVision, ArabVision, AfroVision and AsiaVision trials and semifinals.

The winners will be declared on the 5th of May during a final gala evening, held at Caisa, just like the trials and the semifinals. Red carpet and VIPs and cameras flashes, just like a fancy music award gala!

While the possibility of a CD release, either a studio compilation or a live record, is still being discussed, it’s official that the May the 5th final will be aired by Lähiradio.

“We’ve already received a huge number of entries and we think that the AfricanVision might turn out to be the most crowded trial”, says Martta Louekari, Caisa’s information officer. “We look forward to great musical variety, as the group or soloist taking part in the competition can perform either in their own or in any other language, and they can choose to perform covers or their own compositions.”

The artists taking part in OurVision can count on a top-quality jury.

{quotes}The grand old man of the jury is the legendary Finnish jazz musician and composer Heikki Sarmanto{/quotes}. A different perspective is granted by the presence of Tidjan, leading vocalist of the Finnish supergroup Kwan. Other members of the jury will mirror the different musical ‘flavours’ of the competition.

Winners of OurVision will certainly get to be famous in Finland, but who knows if the next Youssou N’ Dour lives in Helsinki or the next Cheb Khaled in Tampere…

Entries for OurVision will be accepted up to the 11th of December.

Categories
Art Exhibitions

Photographs In The Green


{mosimage} Things Do Not Change, a photographic exhibition by Carla Schubert, a Finnish-Austrian artist, comprises a series of black and white photographs portraying shapes and details of woods, trees, roots… The beauty of the undated and untitled photographs is underlined by their being associated with quotes from the book Walden written in 1854 by Henry David Thoreau.

Schubert, a psychologist by training and profession, has been active in the art world since 1992 with video, installations and photography, and has had her work on display in Austria several times, the last in Autumn 2005. Photographing is in the family: “My mother, a photographer, used to develop her own pictures, and I sort of grew up in the darkroom. Art for me is a very selfish exercise, it's all about oneself and one’s (the artist’s) views of the world. Working with other people is different; I can be of use to them, I can help them with their problems.”

“Walden has been one of my favourite books when I was a teenager. The times we live in now have brought it back to my mind. The things he says about the world’s restlessness and people often forgetting what's truly important, I think they fit perfectly into our lives as we live now. Everybody is just busy and stressed, nervous to achieve something,” says Schubert.

{quotes}Schubert’s photographs, and their Walden captions, suggest to us that from time to time it would be good to move away from our everyday hassle, and rest our eyes on a scene that doesn’t change as often as we change mobile phones.{/quotes} They are a reminder that maybe the way we live nowadays is neither the only or the best possible way to spend our lives.

The Winter Garden offers a luxuriant background with all kind of agaves and cactuses to the black and white pictures of Schubert. “The head gardener was very happy to have them there,” says the artist, whose next exhibition will be held in the spring, at the Zebra Gallery, Karjaa.


Helsinki winter garden, Hammarskjöldintie 1, 00250 Helsinki.

Opening hours: Mon closed Tue 09.00–15.00 Wed–Fri 12.00–15.00 Sat–Sun
12.00–16.00