I'm a Finnish-Dutch artist, organiser and teacher living in Amsterdam-Noord. In my work I explore the revolutionary potential of collective creativity. As an autodidact DJ, filmmaker and anarchist, clubs are my art school and protests my phd.
I'm a Finnish-Dutch artist, organiser and teacher living in Amsterdam-Noord. In my work I explore the revolutionary potential of collective creativity. As an autodidact DJ, filmmaker and anarchist, clubs are my art school and protests my phd.
2024
Tags: art, design, education, international
For Drifts Festival in Helsinki, 2 - 6 September, I organised a week-long Good Praxis workshop with 50 students of Art School Maa for the opening of their new school year. Connecting to the theme of Drifts Festival—Precarious Lives—students organised a communal celebration based on mutual aid. In other words: we organised a party. By organising a party together the students of Art School Maa would get to know each other, collaborate and express themselves.
Drifts is a nomadic art platform that organises transcultural art festivals annually in various regions of Helsinki, Finland. This year's festival engaged with the social scars caused by fascism and capitalism that oppress and dispossess lives and addresses contemporary urgencies in Suomenlinna, a site where wounds from various historical moments/periods remain.
Founder and artistic director of Drifts Soko Hwang participated in Good Praxis Malmö last May, and together with Art School Maa rector H Ouramo invited us to do our workshop in Helsinki.
Art School Maa, founded in 1986, offers versatile arts education in Suomenlinna, an island off the coast of Helsinki. In its teaching, Maa emphasises interdisciplinarity, thinking and new forms in contemporary arts. In addition to teaching, Maa maintains project space Maa-Tila located in Sörnäinen, and organises art activities in the Helsinki metropolitan region and internationally.
In a 5-day workshop, the students of Art School Maa explored how we can desire the world differently. Inspired by artist Toni Cade Bambara, who said “the role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible”, the workshop focused on the students’ desires, abilities and needs to form groups that would create works that were an expression of their revolutionary feelings. By doing so, the workshop is a collaborative pedagogical improvisation that leads to a spontaneous celebration of collective creativity. It also leads to accomplishment, experience and, hopefully, good praxis.