Valentina Karga, Elena Mazzi and La Jetée invited residents of Maunula as collaborators in art projects that seek local interpretations of global crises disrupting our environment, society and the media. Their work was exhibited at the opening festival of Maunula House, a new cultural centre in Helsinki in 1.-14.2.2017.
Valentina Karga: Our Coming Community
Our Coming Community is an installation that makes the values of a community visible in a totem installation, consisting of a ceramic totem and video projection. The work presents an ethical reflection on communal sharing in times of crisis. “We have a tremendous power to change the world - It's just a matter to find the way to communicate these changes”, says Valentina Karga.
Valentina Karga is a Greece-born artist based in Berlin. Her work encourages engagement and participation, facilitates practices of commoning and is concerned with sustainability. In her collaborative projects, she often imagines and prototypes alternative social, economic and pedagogic structures. Valentina's work has been presented at transmediale festival, Athens Biennial and Whitechapel Gallery.
Elena Mazzi: I'm Talking to You
I'm Talking to You traces individual reactions to global news flows. In the project, Elena Mazzi and her local friends entered in dialogue on how the media affects their everyday lives. Seven participants invited her to their homes to record their reactions to the news. “We are living a very hard time, and what you get in the news is not exactly what is going on for real.“ says Elena Mazzi.
Elena Mazzi an Italian artist whose work is based on antrhopological participatory observation. Her projects address the clashes of local cultures with global changes, and often she works with people affaceted by a local crisis. Mazzi's work has been presented internationally (Istanbul Biennale, Architecture Venice Biennale, COP17 Durban) and she is the recipient of several awards.
La Jetée: Maunula Atmospheres
Maunula Atmoshperes looks for traces of climate change in the private media collections of Maunula residents. From their photo albums and home videos, La Jetée framed and zoomed into skies, extracting images of the atmosphere for a poetic film and installation. “We look at the sky as a commons, something that is shared by the whole community, and taht belongs to each and every individual.”
La Jetée is an artist duo formed by Italian Paolo Patelli and Giuditta Vendrame, combining art, design and research into experimental projects. Their works are about visible and invisible changes in urban spaces, technology and the environment. Their works have presented internationally (eg. Venice Architecture Biennale, Grey Cube, Helsinki, ZKM Zentrum fur Kunst und Media, Karlsruhe).
The works exhibited at Maunula house were created in artist residency with m-cult in 2016, in context of the Collaborative Arts Partnership Programme and the 'Helsinki model' art pilots of the Helsinki City.
