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PROGRAM

Sidewalk 1st Ed. 2024: Embracing Performance Art in Vantaa – open call for all

The Sidewalk Project was envisioned as a dynamic initiative to engage the residents of Vantaa in the exploration of performance art, emphasizing this medium as a powerful and accessible form of self-expression. Sidewalk was initiated by The Other Side Performance Art Platform and funded by the Kone Foundation.

The project aimed to remove barriers between art and the public, encouraging participants to reflect on their experiences and creatively express them with the medium of performance art.

With a focus on inclusivity, the project welcomed with an open call all individuals from diverse cultural and educational backgrounds, prioritizing enthusiasm over experience. This approach ensured that performance art became a medium through which all participants could meaningfully engage with art, regardless of their previous artistic experience.

Phase 1: Workshops and Lectures

First phase of The Sidewalk 1st Ed. 2024 began with workshops led by Tomasz Szrama, introducing participants to performance art and encouraging experimentation. Alongside these sessions, participants benefited from insights shared by distinguished guest lecturers, including Roi Vaara, Kira O'Reilly, Vishnu Vardhani Rajan, John Court, Anguezomo Mba Bikoro, Tero Nauha, and Irma Optimisti. These artists provided various perspectives, enriching the participants’ understanding of performance art as a versatile and accessible medium and gave an assignment for participants to ponder and reflect on.

Phase 2: Ideation and Execution of Performances

Participants also received personalized guidance from Tomasz Szrama, the mentor of the project, Parsa Kamehkhosh, and Aman Askarizad, helping them refine their ideas, arrange the logistics and develop their final performance pieces. At this stage, participants also had to think about the presence of cameras and documentation in their works in order to decide about details of their acts and what they want to emphasize on.

Phase 3: Post-production and Exhibition

In the third phase of The Sidewalk 1st Ed. 2024, attention shifted to post-production and preparing for the final exhibition. The performances, captured during the execution phase, were edited by The Other Side team or by participants who chose to handle the editing themselves. The performances filmed in the art project are exhibited at Gallery K. The exhibition is made in a collaboration with the Vantaa Art Museum Artsi.

PARTICIPANTS

Francois Bernier

Born and brought up in France. I have lived and worked in many corners of the world and now in Finland. Mostly gregarious and forever curious.

Alan P. L. Fung

Alan, currently working as a postdoctoral researcher in atmospheric science, has been passionate about bridging science and art through different media. He has been exploring artistic ways to deliver messages on pressing environmental issues on our planet.

Paula Haapalahti

”I love to observe my surroundings by taking photos randomly in nature and urban spaces. I would like to show the world through my eyes. I want to share the feeling, the touch, the smell, and the joy of everyday life. As a personal journey, I want to learn from my experiences and to see beyond the surface. I try to connect my inner thoughts visually into my work and to catch things as they are in the moment. No more, no less. "There's something significant and beautiful in this world which always surprises me... in particular: kindness, love, compassion, and gratitude will never lose their relevance"

Milla Hutri

Working in the field of social healthcare as a cultural instructor in a senior home. Culture and art are connected to well-being throughout a lifetime. Exploring ways to express myself and the way I see the world through art. Child at heart.

Xiao Junyi

With 14 years of experience living in Finland, I’ve become an idealistic and enthusiastic marketer who believes in the powerful synergy between art and marketing. I see art as a unique gateway to open minds, blending creativity with strategic thinking to inspire and connect with audiences. Passionate about exploring the intersection of art and marketing, I am dedicated to creating meaningful and impactful experiences.

Heidi Lähtevänoja

My background lies in poetry, visual arts, and movement. I want to create and implement my inner thoughts and feelings into reality with creativity. I am a 42-year-old human being from Vantaa. With dancing, painting, writing, and photographing I come to live. Through art, I have been seen and have versatile possibilities to encounter people.

Miikka Poutiainen

Miikka Poutiainen is a media artist who has been working in the digital arena for around 20 years. He is interested in experimenting and combining different visual and audiovisual art forms and expressions in his works. Most of the time the outcome of his works are video or digital media-related. In recent years he has delved into making mostly documentary films. Many of his works deal with current societal issues. Poutiainen has graduated from the University of Arts and Design, Helsinki as Master of Arts.

Dmitry Tayya

Dmitry Tayya, 39, is an artist and business consultant who moved to Finland from Russia in 2022 to contribute to global peace initiatives.

WORKSHOPS

Photo credit: Aman Askarizad

INTERVIEW

Tomasz Szrama (b. 1970 in Poland) graduated in 1998 from the Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw, Poland. Currently, he lives in Helsinki, Finland. Szrama shifts between multiple disciplines, including photography, video, action, and other time-based works. Regardless of the medium, a dominant thread, common in his work is the use of his own body and methods of performance art, which he has practiced since 1993. Characteristic features of his actions are the use of spectators, active participation of the audience, and improvisation. Such a strategy embeds his presentations into the tradition of understanding performance art as process art, where the very moment of creation is essential. His work touches on themes of travel, trust in interpersonal relationships, and the ever-present potential for personal failure.

Irma Optimisti (real name Irma Anita Luhta; born Yliaho, born 1952 in Vaasa ) is a mathematician, performance artist, and curator living in Helsinki. He is one of the early pioneers of Finnish performance art, whose performances have also received international attention. Luhta graduated with a master's degree from the University of Oulu and in 1997 at the University of Vaasa, he received his doctorate in chaos theory with the subject of structural changes in a complex system. In the years 1984 to 1999, he worked at the University of Vaasa as a researcher and teacher, and from 2001 worked as a mathematics lecturer at the Turku University of Economics. In Irma Optimist's ironic and parodic performance shows, feminism, mathematics, and chaos were often the topics.

Roi Vaara (born July 17, 1953, in Moss, Norway) is a Finnish performance artist. Vaara studied in the general evening course at the University of Applied Sciences in 1972–1975 and art research at the University of Jyväskylä in 1976–1977.

Vaara has presented around 300 different performances. His works have been exhibited in about 200 international exhibitions and festivals in more than 30 countries. Vaara was awarded the Ars Fennica award in 2005. In 2010, Vaara was awarded the Pro Finlandia badge of honor. The President of the Republic awarded him the title of Academician of Arts in March 2023.

Tero Nauha is a professor in Live Art and Performance Studies (LAPS), at Uniarts Helsinki. In 2007 with Akseli Virtanen, Mikko Jakonen, Karolina Kucia, Katve-Kaisa Kontturi, and Heidi Fast he co-created the mollecular organization, which researched experimental forms to rethink value and organization in the context of cognitive capitalism and knowledge production. He defended his doctoral research at the Theatre Academy of the University of the Arts in Helsinki in January 2016. The title of the dissertation was Schizoproduction: Artistic research and performance in the context of immanent capitalism. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Academy of Finland-funded postdoctoral research project ‘How To Do Things With Performance?’ (2016-20), and a postdoctoral fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies in 2017.