Exciting news!

rink is presented in Kuntsi Museum of Modern Art

as part of the group exhibition Dimensions of a Line

9.9.2023 -14.4.2024

Dimensions of a Line  

9.9.2023 – 14.4.2024  

Leo Ackley | Jouni Airaksinen | Gösta Armfelt | Juhana Blomstedt | Sebastian Craig & Barry Sykes | Jacob Dahlgren| Emma Fält & Iida Valkonen | Kristján Guðmundsson | Katriina Haikala | Jussi Heikkilä | Hannaleena Heiska | IC-98 | Tiina Kivinen | Silja Rantanen | Tuomo Rosenlund | Stiina Saaristo | Eeva Tiisala | Markus Tuormaa  

How do artists work with the line, where does its shape settle as a simple pencil and charcoal drawing or as a spatial installation. The variations of the line can be seen in the collective exhibition at the Kuntsi Museum of Modern Art. Both Finnish and international contemporary artists – 18 artists and artist groups – present the line as part of their artistic work.   

Charcoal, one of the chemical elements, is a classic material used by many artists. In the exhibition, the charcoal drawing can be seen in different forms. Leo Ackley‘s dynamic, organic drawing line produces new variations of the female figure, and Juhana Blomstedt‘s Genesis series represents an angular geometric figurative language. Jouni Airaksinen refers to art history in his spatial work This is not a Charcoal Drawing II. Contemporary artists also have a surprising choice of materials; when one draws with hair and the other with coat hangers, another can produce a line with a skate on the ice.   

The world has been recorded by drawing, and the history of the representational line is long. The image of the city has been documented in site-specific commissioned works and imaginary memories – Gösta Armfelt‘s lithograph from the 1870s as a curiosity. How do you remember a city you once visited or how someone else describes a city you have never been to. Visual answers to these considerations can be found in the works collected in the exhibition.   

A person and its image take shape as drawings from self-irony to inner worlds. The line bends into many shapes on a two-dimensional surface. In her performative project, Katriina Haikala has drawn the image of a woman forgotten in art history. The encounter-based drawing performance has continued since 2017, for example in Oslo, Paris and New York. In Hannaleena Heiska‘s Camourflage series, on the other hand, the shape hides from view. The series also presents the artist’s three-dimensional works. Stiina Saaristo‘s monumental drawings of female figures have taken on new three-dimensional forms in recent years.   

The concept of the exhibition also makes the line spatial. It can run wild in the space and take shape as a three-dimensional installation. The work of the Swedish artist Jacob Dahlgren, known for his playfulness and stripes, invites the viewer immersively inside the work, into a physical experience.   

IC-98‘s Abendland (Hours, Years, Aeons), which represented Finland at the Venice Biennale in 2015, will be the first domestic public performance at the art museum. The drawing animation of the artist duo brings together the subtlety of line combined with the exploratory side of contemporary digital drawing.   

The exhibition was produced by Vaasa City Museums and it comprises of numerous loans from art museums and rarely seen private collections. Katriina Haikala Social Portrait – Women Only and Tuomo Rosenlund, who has documented Vaasa and the disappearance of silos from the city’s landscape, are doing special site-specific projects for Vaasa. The exhibition has been curated by the chef of exhibitions Maaria Salo. The national Art Testers has selected the exhibition for its 2023–2024 program.   

Emma Fält & Iida Valkoinen, RINK, 2022. In collaboration with Mancianti, Saarinen & NoU Ringette SM. Photo: Kim Saarinen, 2022. 

info in finnish: https://vaasankaupunginmuseot.fi/tapahtuma/viivasta-tilaan/

Thinking Through Drawing events Ground / MAA summer residency

GROUND / MAA

Welcome to Ground – time and space for deep reflection, listening, and grounding.

Thinking through Drawing summer residency in Niemelä house, with artists Angela Brew and Emma Fält

 July 23rd-30th 2023

Nerohvirta Village, Iisalmi, Finland 

Please join us in our Finnish lakeside studio to explore our personal and collective creative paths and to build a supportive community of practice. 

Together we will create a practical book for artists and educators, with our insights and advice on how to open doors and unlock drawers.

Please send us a short statement, max 100 words, outlining why you would like to attend the residency.

Costs will be kept to a minimum, to cover expenses. £350, excluding accommodation. You have the option of booking a bedroom with us in the studio house or finding your own local accommodation. 

For further details please contact

Emma Fält (FIN)

+358 45 630 4130

emmavilina@gmail.com

Angela Brew (UK)

brewdrawing@gmail.com


The 2023 Thinking through Drawing symposium

Drawing Ground Drawing practices to support Earth
Friday 29th September – Sunday 1st October 2023

PLEASE KEEP THESE DATES FREE – tickets available soon

THE CALL FOR TTD 2023:

We invite workshop and presentation proposals that engage drawing as fertile ground for research, reflection and advocacy for the environment. We encourage creative interpretations and approaches.  All submissions are welcome and will be considered.  Are you interested in running a live drawing workshop in your locality? Do you want to record a drawing workshop that you or another person run? Do you have a Drawer you would like to interview? Do you want to make a presentation – a research paper or another? Sticking with our successful hybrid model, the symposium will encompass local in-person workshops, as well as online workshops, presentations, and discussion forums. In-person workshops will be streamed live when possible, and recorded. 

Please send an initial 100-word proposal to brewdrawing@gmail.com by May 15th 2023. Please include your website and/or relevant social media links.

We look forward to hearing from you!The TtD Boardthinkingthroughdrawing.org

Thinking through Drawing has consistently produced, published, and presented original drawing research and curriculum.  It has hosted various courses and workshops as well as six international symposia, in collaboration with Columbia University, University of the Arts London, Indiana University Southeast, SUNY New Paltz, Loughborough University and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Visiting Art and Urban Planning seminar in Kemi 27.4.

Hi!

I am happy to travel to Kemi to participate in a seminar about art, cities and urban planning this week. I am going to share thoughts (and of course some dreams) about Shared Futures – a project that this year reaches its 4 years age! We have worked together with Anna Maria Väisänen, Roberto Fusco and 60+ people as well as many visitors who were walking with us in Kuopio and Mikkeli. Little did we know when we started planning on listening walks in the city, drawing dialogues and drawing sound experiments with invited guests. We feel that it is a good moment to share with other art practitioners as well as architects and the audience what we have learned and what are our hopes and dreams about living areas in the future.

The event is organised by Piste Kollektiivi a collective of artists and art educators who share a passion to do art in relation to their community. Cross-art Collective Piste produces high-quality and distinctive contemporary circus, dance and theatre performances and applied art projects.

You can see information in English at https://www.pistekollektiivi.fi/english-2/

And about the event in Finnish here:

Workshops in Karakallio last week

Our feet were listening to Karakallio in pleasant spring weather with students from the local secondary school.

Thank you to everyone who participated last week in the Listening Positions – workshops. Now I am much wiser about the area and its specialities. Many of the public spaces around here are important to the people of the area. The common wish seems to be that much of what is now understood as Karakallio would stay the same at least when it comes to suburban forests. Also, it was decided together that pizza, heavy metal and suburban forests as well as friends will not disappear from here for at least 100 years! People will say goodbye soon to their shopping mall, but the memories seem to be vivid!

A student created a pain curve about how it is to be without their mobile phone during the workshops.

The participants were listening in many different ways and together we shared thoughts on what is it that we hear and how that affects us. We also did some drawn sketches about our feelings and tried to map what we pay attention to. In the end, everyone did a little imagining exercise about what Karakallio will become 100 years from now in their personal utopia.

Now I am working towards a new sound art piece, the third and final part of the project. Stay tuned!

Blindwalks with friends and the listening drawings looking at the environment. Photos: Hanna Häkkä 2023

Sunny hi from Kuopio, Finland!

Emma

New Work – listening positions – will be published this spring

Kuunteluasentoja on tilaustyö, joka valmistuu keväällä 2023 Karakallioon, Espooseen

Julkisen taiteen teos sisältää kolme osaa:

  1. Kirje Karakallion asukkaille
  2. Työpajat Karakalliossa 15.4.2023
  3. Ääniteos, joka on sijoitetaan alueen lähiömetsään keväällä 2023

Teoksessa keskeistä on pohtia, millaiset asiat vaikuttavat kokemukseen ympäristöstä. Kolmiosainen teos kutsuu mukaan kokeilemaan ehdottamiani kuunteluasentoja ja asemia, sekä löytämään omia.

Lue lisää ja ilmoittaudu työpajaan:

https://www.karakalliocreative.com/emma-faltin-monitaiteinen-teos-tutkii-ymparistoa-kuunnellen-ja-tunnustellen/


Listening Positions is a commissioned work that will be completed in the spring of 2023 in Karakallio, Espoo

The work consists of three parts:

  1. A letter to the residents of Karakallio
  2. Workshops in Karakallio in 15/04/2023
  3. A sound art piece, that will be placed in the suburban forest of the area

The focus of the work is to think about what kinds of things affect the experience of the environment. This work invites you to try different listening positions suggested as well as find your own.

Jaettu tulevaisuus: Imagining Future Bodies vierailee palvelukeskuksissa tänä keväänä

Imagining Future Bodies on esitys, jossa yli 60-vuotiaista kuopiolaisista koostuva osallistujajoukko jakaa yleisölle kokemuksellista matkaansa tulevaisuuden Kuopioon.
Imagining Future Bodies -esitys oli osa ANTI-festivaalin ohjelmistoa viime syksynä. Tänä keväänä esitys saa uuden muodon ja yleisön, kun teos vierailee kuopiolaisissa palvelukeskuksissa.
Esiintyjät ovat tutkineet kaupunkitilaa ja elinympäristöjään sekä näihin liittyviä tulevaisuuden unelmia ja tarpeita. Työssä keskeistä on ollut syvällinen ja radikaali kuunteleminen, yhteiskuvittelu ja moniaistisen lähestymistavan hyödyntäminen. Palvelukeskuskiertueella ryhmä tuo näkyväksi erilaisia tulevaisuuden materiaaleja, äänimaailmoja, kehollisia maisemia ja ympäristöjä.
Esitykset toteutetaan yhteistyössä Kuopion kaupungin kanssa.
Tervetuloa!


Työryhmä

Ohjaus: Emma Fält & Anna-Maria Väisänen

Esiintyjät: Merja Suurniemi, Lea Pulkkinen, Airi Kostet, Arja Krook, Seija Väisänen

Esitykset
to 16.3 klo 12 Suokadun toimintakeskus, liikuntasalima

27.3. klo 11.30 Melankadun toimintakeskus, monitoimitilake

29.3. klo 11.30 Alava-talo, salima

8.5. klo 11.30 Puijonlaakson toimintakeskus, liikuntasalipe

12.5. klo 10 Leväsen toimintakeskus, liikuntasali


Shared Futures: Imagining Future Bodies on tour at service centers

Imagining Future Bodies is a performance in which a group of participants consisting of people from Kuopio over 60 years of age share their experiential journey to the future of Kuopio with the audience.

Imagining Future Bodies premiered at ANTI Festival 2022 and now the working group will go on tour at local service centers.

The performers have explored the urban space and their habitats, as well as their dreams and hopes of the future. Deep and radical listening, co-imagining and utilizing a multi-sensory approach have been central to the work. On the service center tour, the group brings different future materials, sound worlds, bodily landscapes and environments to light.

Welcome!

Työryhmä
Ohjaus: Emma Fält & Anna-Maria Väisänen

Esiintyjät: Merja Suurniemi, Lea Pulkkinen, Airi Kostet, Arja Krook, Seija Väisänen

Dear everyone,

This year has gone so fast and it is time to wrap up things before the Holidays. This year has been a lot about dialogue and sharing with two new large-scale projects and some smaller ones. In each one of them, I was connecting with something new and drawing + listening as carefully as possible.

This year I have worked together with a Ringette – team, 60 + people, Sociology students at Turku University, art students, art lovers of many kinds, the KSL Civic Association for Adult Learning, artists, researchers as well as with my kid and AI. Maybe it is needless to say that I am curious and love the dialogue. Looking back at things that happened this year, it certainly is a privilege for me to be able to do these things. Thinking about how difficult times we are experiencing, I am so happy to see that there still is a possibility for sharing, trust and inspiration. I am glad that so many thinkers, makers and associations have been reaching out to ask me to collaborate! Please do, I am more than happy to continue sharing practice, opening dialogue, connecting and listening through art.

There are still some things happening in Kuopio this year. So, if you are here please go and see what´s written below. If you are not in Kuopio or in Finland, I am more than happy to tell you that these projects seem to have a life of their own, so you might be able to experience some of it the following year out of my home city.

I will be sharing also something new right before Christmas. So stay tuned for a couple of weeks more! Until then, I wish you a peaceful and inspiring December!

Hear you soon again,

Emma


SHARED FUTURES – project

The nearest event is gonna happen on Saturday this week

Saturday 3.12. between 12-14 – KIVET TYKKÄÄ TEKNOSTA – and other reflections on future

Kohtaamo, Kuopio City Library, Maaherrankatu 12, 70100 Kuopio

The 60 + group, Performing artist Anna Maria Väisänen and myself are sharing thoughts and inviting the audience to participate at Kohtaamo. You are more than welcome to follow what we have found through the year-long working process about the future. See the link below:

Read more about Annas work: https://www.annamariavaisanen.com/


RINK at Kuopio Art Museum

There a is a little bit more than a month to experience a group exhibition DIALOGI at Kuopio Art Museum.

I, Iida Valkonen and the working group created an audiovisual installation where the key concept is drawing…on the ice this time. Go and see what ringette team NoU Ringette has to do with it!

Info (in Finnish) https://kuopiontaidemuseo.fi/ars-libera-dialogi/

photo: Kim Saarinen 2022

Emma Fält & Iida Valkonen

RINK

Audiovisual installation

2022

Filming and editing: Kim Saarinen & Iida Valkonen

Composing and sound design: Emma Fält & Andrea Mancianti

Production: Fält & Valkonen

Team: NoU Ringette

Support: The Finnish Cultural Foundation, The Finnish Cultural Foundation North Savo Regional Fund, The Arts Promotion Centre Finland, The Finnish Musicians’ Union, Roberto Fusco


The group exhibition RAHTU HIEKKAA, VETTÄ JA TAIVASTA

My new audiovisual installation Voiko Sinne Sukeltaa? is part of the 70th-anniversary exhibition of the Iisalmi Seudun Kuvataideseura ry. The exhibition RAHTU HIEKKAA, VETTÄ JA TAIVASTA is open until 31.12.2022.

I created there a piece that was inspired by outer space, a dialogue with my child who was learning to use words and the capability to connect with something that is far away, almost unreachable.

More info in Finnish: https://www.eemil.fi/nayttelyt/

Voiko Sinne Sukeltaa? photo 2022EF


Past 2022

GalleriA: The chance that makes what we are

Roberto Fusco and I were showing our piece The chance that makes what we are at Kuopio Art Museum this summer. It was great to bring this piece alive in my home city!

You can read more here (in Finnish) https://kuopiontaidemuseo.fi/emma-falt-ja-roberto-fusco-the-chance-that-makes-it-what-we-are/

Go and see what is going on at the GalleriA. It is a collaborative gallery of the Kuopio Art Museum and the Kuopio Kuvataiteilijat ry – Ars Libera which operates on the premises of the Kuopio Art Museum. The gallery, which focuses on Northern Savoland visual art, is free of exhibition rent for artists and free of admission for visitors. GalleriA’s goal is to diversify the art that is viewed in Northern Savonia. GalleriA was opened this summer.

More info and exhibition in Finnish here: https://kuopiontaidemuseo.fi/galleria/

Photo: Kim Saarinen 21


Public Sound Art Piece at Karakallio

The rest of the year I am working on a new public art piece at Karakallio, Espoo. The work is commissioned by Upeart.

It will be a bit different process than the previous ones and also my first public art piece. Can´t wait to tell you more about it!

Read more about Upeart at https://www.upeart.com/


Other future thoughts & Projects coming soon!

Jaettu tulevaisuus – ryhmän avoimet harjoitukset

Tervetuloa seuraamaan työskentelyä ja osallistumaan!

Keskiviikkona 15.6. klo 10-12:30

Paikka Kuopion Pääkirjasto: Kohtaamo

Maaherrankatu 12, 70100 Kuopio

https://kuopio.finna.fi/OrganisationInfo/Home#85373

ja

Kuopion SoiJaTansseilla

Keskiviikkona 18.6. klo 12-13

Paikka Kuopion Pääkirjasto: Kohtaamo

Maaherrankatu 12, 70100 Kuopio

https://www.kuopionsoijatanssit.fi/


In En

Important dates in the near future:

10.-12.6. Polima – Conference in Turku

https://polima.fi/conference-2022/

Open rehearsal and sharing in Kuopio:

15.6. klo 10-12:30 Main Library Kohtaamo, Kuopio

https://kuopio.finna.fi/OrganisationI

&

18.6. klo 12-13 Main Library Kohtaamo, Kuopio

https://www.kuopionsoijatanssit.fi/