Partizaning Maunula

Moscow-based Partizaning collective is an urban activist movement focusing on art as a tool for social change. Two collective members, Anton Polskiy and Natalia Sinitsina were hosted by m-cult to create Partizaning Maunula, an intervention focusing on mechanisms of exclusion in the neighbourhood.

In collaboration with artists from Aalto University’s VICCA MA progamme, Partizaning created a series of interventions to address the parallel dynamics of gentrification and segregation in the Maunula neighbourhood.

To share their work, Partizaning and the group co-edited Mummy News, a supplement to the local newspaper, mixing compassion and humour to discuss local problems. The 4-page supplement was dedicated to a famous person from Maunula’s history: The Maunula Mummy, a lonely alcoholist found mummified in his flat 6 years after his death.

A final event was organised on September 28 in Maunula. The informal programme included the launch of Mummy News, exhibition opening, mölkky gaming as well as bean soup and lingonberry pie offered to all passers-by.

The collaboration took many forms:documentary miniature paintings depicting encounters in Maunula (Anton Polskiy), Maunula Looks, series of photograph portraits (Rogério Nuno Costa); Maunula Speaks, visualized survey on local intra-perceptions (Ali Akbar Mehta & Vidha Saumuya); participatory/intervention reports on local loneliness, the ‘Forest Pub’, and gentrification (Hanna Perälä, Aneta Atsova, Rogerio Nuno Costa); comic strips on the Return of the Mummy and local slot machine gambling, (Jesus Shrestra); and Karjala mölkky, beer-can custom version of the popular ‘mölkky’ outdoor game (Anton Polskiy, Natalia Sinitsina, Aneta Atsova).

The project was commissioned and co-produced by m-cult in August-September 2017 in context of the Collaborative Arts Partnership Programme, supported by the Creative Europe programme.