#tmnw

Teenaged mutant ninja wormies!

  19.01.2019 – 20.01.2019 @Kirkkopuistikko 20, FI-65100 Vaasa, Suomi

  “The state has its areas of performance; so has the artist. While the state performs power, the power of the artist is solely in the performance.” – Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

“…What I have tried to do is a kind of geographical inquiry into historical experience, and I have kept in mind the idea that the earth is in effect one world, in which empty, uninhabited spaces virtually do not exist. Just as none of us is outside or beyond geography, none of us is completely free from the struggle over geography. That struggle is complex and interesting because it is not only about soldiers and cannons but also about ideas, about forms, about images and imaginings.” -Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism

  In the book “Wars and Capital”, radical orthodox-Marxist writer Maurizio Lazzarato attacks the liberalism of John Locke and his support of slavery. By using this 17th-century example, he is constructing a case that centrism (the equivalent of today’s conflicts of subjectivity) is the secret motor of liberal governmentality. What Lazzarato is neglecting is not class consciousness but the fact that what constitutes an abolitionist position in the West, is not the race-blindness of homo oeconomicus but is a consciousness of race, culture and colonialism.

The Carpet Performance is an exercise of togetherness to gain consciousness toward eastern cultures and histories with an anti-Eurocentric method which opens new possibilities in human understanding, rather than the simplistic binary opposition. The event is a night of music, screening and performance made by a group of Helsinki-based artists. The work is dedicated to Ibn Battūta a 14th-century traveler. The inspiration of the events is coming from the concept of the primacy of geography, travels of Ibn Battuta, the historiography of Ibn Khaldun and music of Hayedeh. The reading group will have a conversation over the breakfast after the performance night which is open to the public.

The New Space is an initiative by Filmverkstaden and Platform, and generously supported by Svenska Kulturfonden, Taike, Svensk Österbottniska Samfundet, Kulturösterbotten and the Finnish Cultural Foundation.

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Participating Artists: Hami Bahadori Jo Kjaergaard Suva Gökçe Sandal Arash Akhlaghi Anders Jani Purhonen

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Saturday 19.01.2019 18:00-22:00

Performances Music: Suva, Jo Kjaergaard, Anders Jani Purhonen

Presentation Gökçe Sandal

Film Screening: “The House is Black” (1962 Forough Farrokhzad)

Sunday 20.01.2019 12:00-14:00

Reading Group (with brunch): The Travels of Ibn Battuta (1325-1354) Ibn Khaldun – Muqaddimah Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Enactments of Power: The Politics of Performance Space

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Jo Kjaergaard and Hami Bahadori are an artist duo, organizer and curator based in Helsinki. They combine theory and practice which is in direct relationship with the geography, politics and the privileges that they behold. Their collaborative and people-centered practice is based on the notion of event, distance, movement, belonging and becoming. Jo has lived and studied in Aarhus, Bogota, and Helsinki. Hami has studied and lived in Iran, Turkey, United States and Finland. Together, they are part of an autonomous reading group called insideanairport that meets in Helsinki International Airport.

  Gökçe Sandal is an MA student of Cultural Studies in the University of Helsinki. Originally from Istanbul, Turkey; she’s been living in Finland for the last two years. She is interested in artistic research, and particularly in socially engaged art and artistic intervention methods. She has been involved in the Socially Responsible Artists and Arts Institutions research group within ArtsEqual, which is a research project coordinated by the University of Arts Helsinki. Within this project, she has co-authored a policy brief on the topic of asylum-seeking on the grounds of artistic persecution and how to integrate the newcomer artists into the Finnish local art scene. During the last few years, she has participated in artist residencies and exhibitions in Sweden and Finland.

  Anders Jani Purhonen whose practice currently revolves around simulation, energetic suspension and formation of meaning is an artist based in Helsinki with a soft spot for contingent art forms. He holds an MA from the Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki department of Time & Space. He is the founder of the speculative art space ££, and has been active in Whitecolors, Oksasenkatu11, Mörk, Muu, Taku, montaasi and radio Bekola.

  Suva is working with different aspects of public anatomy – making and doing something with the public. The tools of intervention, interaction, anticipation, perception and the sense of community. He is interested in engaging people to perform, and to have access to collective understanding of the form. He combines the notion of Body and material in his performances. The question of the existence of ‘the Other’ in the space of ‘An-Other’ formed into an important area of his work. His status as an outsider, intermingling through performances and actions in a foreign land, is an important approach, more in the line of hyphen rather than a slash. He combines Music, Visual Art, Bodily writing in his creative process.

  Arash Akhlaghi is an artist, photographer and filmmaker based in Helsinki. His artworks are dealing with repetition in everyday life, juxtaposed to a sense of alienation and anxiety due to isolation. He is a complicated person.

  insideanairport is a study-group consists of people from different backgrounds and cultures who are gathering regularly in Helsinki International Airport. The group is interested in topics related to migration, colonialization/decolonization, subjectivity, violence, surveillance and paranoia.

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Images from the Reading Group conversation Hosted by The New Space (20.01.2019) Artist: Suva

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How Aizawa x reader's relationship started from a misunderstanding

Ch.1 l 2 l 3 l 4 l 5 l 6 l 7 l 8

You shivered at the cold wind, wrapping a thick scarf around your neck. You ended up closing the shop later than usual, but you didn’t mind because you liked the chilly weather. Although your nose was already red from the cold, you savored the fresh air and puffed out tiny clouds for fun. You lifted your arms up for balance, playfully wobbling over the icy road. Suddenly, a faint vibration sound cuts through the crunching sound of your footsteps and you whine, pulling off your bulky gloves to find your phone. You turn your head away to avert your eyes from the brightly lit screen that screamed “Mom”.

“Hi mom,” you mumbled in an attempt to quiet your chattering teeth.

“….Are you outside?” your mom said.

“No…,” you trailed off and sneezed. “Okay, fine I am but I’m almost home! I promise,” you turned a corner to cut through the park for your secret shortcut. You listened and murmured in agreement as your mother nagged about how it wasn’t safe for a young woman to be out at night.

You sighed and retorted that it was only 9 pm. Distracted, you walked past the bench area in the park and failed to notice the hunched over figure sitting on the bench. It was only when the man let out a loud grunt that you dropped your phone in shock, quickly looking over your shoulder.

Date: 19.01.2019 – 20.01.2019 @Kirkkopuistikko 20, FI-65100 Vaasa, Suomi

 “The state has its areas of performance; so has the artist. While the state performs power, the power of the artist is solely in the performance.” – Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

“…What I have tried to do is a kind of geographical inquiry into historical experience, and I have kept in mind the idea that the earth is in effect one world, in which empty, uninhabited spaces virtually do not exist. Just as none of us is outside or beyond geography, none of us is completely free from the struggle over geography. That struggle is complex and interesting because it is not only about soldiers and cannons but also about ideas, about forms, about images and imaginings.” -Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism

 In the book "Wars and Capital", radical orthodox-Marxist writer Maurizio Lazzarato attacks the liberalism of John Locke and his support of slavery. By using this 17th-century example, he is constructing a case that centrism (the equivalent of today's conflicts of subjectivity) is the secret motor of liberal governmentality. What Lazzarato ignoring is the fact that what constitutes an abolitionist position in the West, is not the race-blind radical socialism/communism but is a consciousness toward race, culture and colonialism.

The Carpet Performance is an exercise of togetherness to gain consciousness toward eastern cultures and histories with an anti-Eurocentric method which opens new possibilities in human understanding, rather than the simplistic binary opposition. The event is a night of music, screening and performance made by a group of Helsinki-based artists. The work is dedicated to Ibn Battūta a 14th-century traveler. The inspiration of the events is coming from the concept of the primacy of geography over time, travels of Ibn Battuta, the historiography of Ibn Khaldun and music of Hayedeh. The reading group will have a conversation over the breakfast after the performance night which is open to the public.

 View Adventures of Ibn Battuta: Anatolia in a larger map Source: AP world Class Weebly (Chehab Kaakarli)

Participating Artists: Jo Kjaergaard Hami Bahadori Suva Gökçe Sandal Arash Akhlaghi Anders Jani Purhonen

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Saturday 19.01.2019  ***18:00 -22:00

Performances Music: Suva, Jo Kjaergaard, Anders Jani Purhonen

Presentation Gökçe Sandal

Film Screening: "The House is Black" (1962 Forough Farrokhzad) "Hayedeh: Legendary Persian Diva" (Documentary) ~ [to be confirmed]

Sunday 20.01.2019 ***12:00 - 14:00

Reading Group (Breakfast):

The Travels of Ibn Battuta (1325-1354)

Ibn Khaldun – Muqaddimah

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Enactments of Power: The Politics of Performance Space

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TIEDOTUSKESKUS, workshop by “We See You” – Brinkkala Gallery, Turku, Fi  (2018)

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Reading Performance, Music Address: Space for Free Arts, (Vilhonvuorenkuja 15-16, 00500 Helsinki) Date & Time: Friday 01.02.2019  @18:00 – 22:00

Suva Deep Das (music), T̶H̶I̶S̶ ̶W̶O̶R̶K̶S̶ ̶D̶I̶F̶F̶E̶R̶E̶N̶T̶L̶Y̶ Reading Group (facilitation), Inisideanairport (Performance) 

   Theoretical Payback is a collaborative performance where the participants have the chance to militantly theoretically or poetically attack a Eurocentric intellectual or a school of thought that promoted or stayed nurtural toward theoretical racism. Performances are voluntary, one of the performances will be recorded and simultaneously projected at the space. You can pick one thinker, (pseudo-thinker), artist or writer for theoretical payback. Collaboratively we will read and perform our paybacks in two sessions.

The payback can be in form of poetry, music, singing, sounds or other desired methods.

If you wish to remain neutral and don’t participate you can simply come and enjoy the event.

Jo Kjeargaard and Suva will be facilitating the musical, sound and performative paybacks. InsideanAirport reading group (Arash Akhlaghi and Hami Bahadori) will be facilitating the written and poetic paybacks.

 Music Suva Deep Das

Suva is working with different aspects of public anatomy – making and doing something with the public. The tools of intervention, interaction, anticipation, perception and the sense of community. He is interested in engaging people to perform, and to have access to collective understanding of the form. He combines the notion of Body and material in his performances. The question of the existence of ‘the Other’ in the space of ‘An-Other’ formed into an important area of his work. His status as an outsider, intermingling through performances and actions in a foreign land, is an important approach, more in the line of hyphen rather than a slash. He combines Music, Visual Art, Bodily writing in his creative process.

 Wine and snacks are available. The event is FREE of charge, a modest 5€ donation is requested. The event site is wheelchair accessible.

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 Program

18.00 – 20:00 Reading, conversation, and socializing: also time for writing any statements or jam with friends.

20:00 – 20:50 Performance #1 (unrecorded)

Date: 24.08.2018 – 16.09.2018 Exhibition Laboratory (Merimiehenkatu 36, 00150 Helsinki)

Exhibition Opening: Thursday, August 23, 2018 @17:00 – 22:00

  “it is not just bodies that are orientated. Spaces also take shape by being orientated around some bodies, more than others. We can also consider ‘institutions’ as orientation devices, which take the shape of ‘what’ resides within them.” -Sara Ahmed – A phenomenology of Whiteness (2007)

“…nations themselves are narrations. The power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming and emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism, and constitutes one of the main connections between them.” -Edward W. Said. Culture and Imperialism (1994)

“Walls built around political entities cannot block out without shutting in, cannot secure without making securitization a way of life, cannot define an external “they” without producing a reactionary “we,” even as they also undermine the basis of that distinction.” -Wendy Brown, Walled States, Waning Sovereignty (2010)

“to regard society as one single subject is, in addition, to look at it wrongly; speculatively”  -Karl Marx, Grundrisse (1857)

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How To Build a Wall: Introduction into Art is an exhibition and group project visiting intersections of ‘art production’ and ‘cultural dominance through exclusionary methods’. Inspired by Edward Said’s culture and imperialism the project will incorporate the relationship between: history and structure, structure and space, space and bodies. The artist group will also host a number of events and performances at the opening, and later during the exhibition. There will be a public talk by the acclaimed social anthropologist Shahram Khosravi on 04.09.2018.

Participants: Hami Bahadori Jo Kjaergaard Riikka Theresa Innanen Suva Deep Das Seham Hamuti Arash Akhlaghi

Screenings: Hami Bahadori Arash Akhlaghi

 /// 23.08.2018 @19:00 Performance: Riikka Theresa Innanen

@20:00 Music Performance: Jo Kjaergaard Seham Hamuti

 /// 04.09.2018  @16:30 Music Performance Suva Deep Das

Suva is working with different aspects of public anatomy – making and doing something with the public. The tools of intervention, interaction, anticipation, perception and the sense of community. He is interested in engaging people to perform, and to have access to collective understanding of the form. He combines the notion of Body and material in his performances. The question of the existence of ‘the Other’ in the space of ‘An-Other’ formed into an important area of his work. His status as an outsider, intermingling through performances and actions in a foreign land, is an important approach, more in the line of hyphen rather than a slash. He combines Music, Visual Art, Bodily writing in his creative process.

 @17:00 Public talk Shahram Khosravi

How Does it Feel to be a Crisis? We live in a time of wall fetishism. Never as today have human beings been so obsessed with building walls. Walls are, however, old. Empires built walls, from the Great Wall of China, to Hadrian’s Wall in Northern England  and the Limes Tripolitanus of the Roman Empire in North Africa to keep “barbarians” out. And if we look closer we can see that there are still traces of the old imperial visions in the modern borders and border walls. In this talk I will look at the connections of wars and walls; walls and empires. I will argue that there is a link between the installation of border walls (here) and the unsettling of communities (there). The current border regime is part of a larger and older project of colonial accumulation by dispossession and expulsion; stealing wealth, labor force, and time. I will also argue that border crossing discloses the cracks in the dominant narration of borders and that travelers without papers denaturalize what are otherwise naturalized borders, politicize what are otherwise depoliticized borders. I will illustrate this argument by following travelers without papers along the railways in the Balkans; tracing Afghan deportees in Kabul; and narrating the social life of the materialities used in the wall between Mexico and the US.

Public talk Date: Tuesday 04.09.2018 @17:00 Exhibition Laboratory (Merimiehenkatu 36, 00150 Helsinki)

Part of  “How To Build a Wall: Introduction into Art” Exhibition

 How Does it Feel to be a Crisis?

We live in a time of wall fetishism. Never as today have human beings been so obsessed with building walls. Walls are, however, old. Empires built walls, from the Great Wall of China, to Hadrian’s Wall in Northern England and the Limes Tripolitanus of the Roman Empire in North Africa to keep “barbarians” out. And if we look closer we can see that there are still traces of the old imperial visions in the modern borders and border walls.

In this talk, I will look at the connections of wars and walls; walls and empires. I will argue that there is a link between the installation of border walls (here) and the unsettling of communities (there). The current border regime is part of a larger and older project of colonial accumulation by dispossession and expulsion; stealing wealth, labour force, and time. I will also argue that border crossing discloses the cracks in the dominant narration of borders and that travellers without papers denaturalize what are otherwise naturalized borders, politicize what are otherwise depoliticized borders. I will illustrate this argument by following travellers without papers along the railways in the Balkans; tracing Afghan deportees in Kabul; and narrating the social life of the materialities used in the wall between Mexico and the US.

 Shahram Khosravi is Professor of Social Anthropology at Stockholm University and the author of the books: Young and Defiant in Tehran, University of Pennsylvania Press (2008); The Illegal Traveler: an auto-ethnography of borders, Palgrave (2010); Precarious Lives: Waiting and Hope in Iran, University of Pennsylvania Press (2017), and After Deportation: Ethnographic Perspectives, Palgrave (2017, edited volume). He has been an active writer in the Swedish press and has also written fiction.

  Opening event / happening 29.04.2018 – 18:00  Exhibition 29.04 – 09.05 @Alkovi (helsinginkatu 19, 00500 Helsinki)

  Kino Club: Paola Figueroa  Lasse Krister Vairio Verneri Salonen Theo Tornberg Rotts Pavel Sekular Tomasz Marie Boisson Ignat Burdo

Reading Group: Linda Ciesielski  Arash Akhlaqi  Hami Bahadori Jo Kjaergaard  Gökçe Sandal Ilya Orlov

Exhibition: The theme of the exhibition and collaboration is ‘Networks’ and ‘Reverse Image’ reflecting on the history of dominant modes of mass-communication in relation to urban collectivism, student organizing, and community insurgency. The installation will consist of digital works curated specifically for Red May by TMNW. 

Happening (during the opening 29.4): Students of Kuvataideakatemia from Kino Club and Reading group are organizing a special event for the opening. The public is invited to participate in making soup, and enjoying it with the neighborhood community. It will be a festive event celebrating the International workers day and Vappu. 

Music performance:  Burdo Rotts Pavel

Screenings: #1 SEMAPHORE – Flatchestedmama #2 SCREENINGS – Kasra Rahmanian #3 WHY DON’T YOU SPEAK FINNISH? – Fatmir Mustafa-Karllo #4 MEDIATED PRESENCE/ PERFORMANCE – Ksenia Yurkova #5 GO BACK GO LEFT – Arash Akhlaqi #6 SANTA CLAUS IS COMIN’ TO TOWN, (YOU BETTER WATCH OUT) #3 – Hami Bahadori #7 UNTITLED – Jo Kaejgaard (more)

///////////////////// What is it that today some of us are connected to all parts of the world via internet (and might even know hundreds of colleagues internationally) but we might not know any of the people who live with us in the same apartment complex? At the same time, many others around the world are in constant state of fear and paranoia form war and terror.

Punainen Toukokuu/Red May is a celebratory exhibition, simultaneous with Vappu at Alkovi gallery in the neighborhood of Kaillo. Kino Club and Reading Group are collaborating on a public performance for the opening of the exhibition. The performance will involve music and video screening followed by serving soup to the public. This will be the second year in which Red May exhibition happens in Alkovi.

The exhibition is supported by Kuvataideakatemia