Mad House Helsinki gets three new curators, when artists Elina Pirinen, Mikko Niemistö and Sonja Jokiniemi join the team. They are planning the program for Mad House’s 4th Season, taking place in 2017 together with curators Leena Kela, Martina Marti, Annika Tudeer and Juha Valkeapää.
Performance: TU at the 1st Finnish triennial of the community arts
TU will be showcased in TEHDAS Teatteri in Turku on 31 May as part of RECEPTION, the 1st Triennial of the Community Arts organised by the Saari Residence maintained by the Kone Foundation and Arts Promotion Centre Finland together with several local partners.
TU is a collaborative performance work by Sonja Jokiniemi and Veera Kivelä. The base of the work is on Veera's language that appears in complex intimate sound systems and movement patterns. Jokiniemi and Kivelä map the performance space through touching, sounding and moving through, communicating with objects, the space itself and with one another. TU is part of a community-based research project Without an alphabet, where Jokiniemi worked with four autistic young adults investigating subjective language systems. Kivelä is one of her collaborators from this project.
The first triennial of the community arts in Finland offers a broad view on socially engaged art practice and on the works of art created in interaction and collaboration with various communities. The theme of the triennial RECEPTION refers on the one hand to the act of receiving as well as to hospitality. On the other hand, it raises questions about the resistance and the power structures. Who do we welcome, to whom do we turn our backs? In which troops do we stand and whose voices are being heard? In this time, what creates the feeling of togetherness? What kind of reactions and artistic outcomes creates the trinity of the artists, the communities and society ?
Between the spring and the early summer of 2016 RECEPTION will spread out to the west coast of Finland. The participating cities are Helsinki, Kemiönsaari, Turku, Mynämäki, Rauma, Pori and Vaasa. In each city, both local and visiting artists open and showcase their collabrative art processes and practices to the wider audience. The full triennial programme contains e.g artists-in-residence, discussions, presentations and works created during the event together with local communities.
Video: Sonja Jokiniemi in conversation with Georg Weinand
Sonja Jokiniemi discusses her work, the role of objects in her pieces and the upcoming premiere of RRRRR in Bern.
Video: Forever Young festival trailer is out!
The trailer for Forever Young festival is out and it includes a teaser of RRRRR. Premiere coming up on 23 February in Dampfzentrale Bern.
RRRRR premieres in Dampfzentrale Bern on 23.2.2016
Sonja Jokiniemi's new piece RRRRR will premiere in Dampfzentrale Bern during their Forever Young festival on 23 and 24 February 2016. The piece will be in a double bill together with Nick Steur's Freeze.
RRRRR erzählt von schizophrenen Zügen in uns selbst, unserer Umgebung, der virtuellen Welt und den gesellschaftspolitischen Strukturen. Das besondere Interesse von Jokiniemi gilt der ständigen Präsenz von Künstlichkeit und der Entkörperlichung in der Online-Existenz. Ihr Projekt zielt darauf ab, Verdrängungen, Entgleisungen und Chaos in unserer Umgebung und in unseren Seelenlandschaften zu analysieren, sie zu verstehen und sie methodologisch für ihre Arbeit als Performerin aufzubereiten.
Ghost of Mad House: A Summary
Sonja Jokiniemi talks about her experience as the Ghost of Mad House Helsinki on the Mad House blog (only in Finnish). More about the Ghost project here.
Article: Without an Alphabet in Autismi magazine
Sonja Jokiniemi wrote an article about her experiences with the Without an Alphabet project for the Finnish Autismi magazine issue 4-2015. Read the text here (only in Finnish).