An international group of artists whose work involves media and social engagement will start working in the Maunula neighbourhood of Helsinki this May. The residency projects produced by m-cult will be realized in collaboration with Maunula residents.
The call for projects received proposals by almost 400 artists from 63 countries and artistic disciplines ranging from media, visual and performing arts to architecture, design, even literature. Both award-winning pioneers and emerging young artists responded to the call.
“The huge international interest in Maunula took us by surprise. It speaks of the artists' desire to engage with people and to ground their practice in contexts of everyday life”, says m-cult director Minna Tarkka. Many of the proposals were inspired by the community life of the Maunula neighbourhood which is known for its active citizen participation and local democracy.
The artists selected for the Spring 2016 season will probe dimensions of the local media landscape.
Steve Maher (IE/FI) is a visual artist whose socially engaged works often are located within cultures of music. His project Heavy Metal Detector (pictured above) brings customized metal detectors to uncover hidden soundscapes of Helsinki, together with heavy metal musicians and their audiences. stevemaher.net
Artist duo La Jetée's (Paolo Patelli and Giuditta Vendrame, IT) piece Media excavations in the atmospheric imagery will discover local ambiences from the home videos and photo albums of Maunula residents and transform them into an experimental film. la-jetee.it
Body electric by choreographer Juli Reinartz (SE/DE) is a dance workshop for children investigating movement, bodies and media. How do children navigate the flux of images and transform it into new bodily experiences? julireinartz.org
The Autumn 2016 projects will question the shaping of collectivity in interactions between people, value systems and material environments. Artists Valentina Karga (GR/DE), Riikka Kuoppala (FI) & Thomas Martin (FR) and Elena Mazzi (IT) will invite the Maunula community to share their views and make their values visible in moving images. Workshop projects in sound art are also being planned for the Autumn season.
Download the press release in Finnish and English below.