perfhop is a group who meets once a month to experiment with all kinds of ideas/ actions/ gestures/ sounds/ words etc that might possibly look/ sound/ feel like what is termed as performance art.

If you have a short (5-10 minute) performance/ action/ idea that your would like to test out in a supportive environment please bring these along. Please also bring along ideas for group performance exercises you would like to try out, or just come along for the ride (please note that perfhop is participatory).

This time we will meet in the tori of TeaK, and go upstairs together at klo 18:10

Welcome to perfhop!

Ptarmigan will have a presence at Supermarket 2012 in Stockholm (17-19^th February). We will contribute performances, artHOP tours, and vibrancy to an exhibition of hundreds of artists from 70 artist-run galleries (and other artist initiatives) from 30 different countries.

Welcome to our booth!

Opening hours: Fri 11am-10pm, Sat 11am-8pm, Sun 11am-6pm.

Kulturhuset is located in the city centre of Stockholm. 3^rd and 5^th floors. www.supermarketartfair.com

Luciana Ohira and Sergio Bonilha (Brazil) 

"transimmanence" is an art project by Luciana Ohira & Sergio Bonilha. In their words "It is a new project we are working on as a way of think about this largely announced "shift on Earth" we are (maybe) about to experience in/from 2012. Three artworks named with titles suggesting transcendent issues but offering three mainly immanent experiences is what we propose in a Spinozian way of mixing feeling and thinking. Does it sounds too abstract? Don't worry! We are going to bring with us one of the artworks, "ascesis", plus pictures from it's construction process."

Jane Hughes: Imagining Other Worlds

‘The language and narrative of peripheries, forgotten and forbidden areas have been a recurring motif in my work. Much of my source material in my installations originates in these desolate landscapes, banal roadside views, crumbing structures, hidden remnants and peculiar locations. I am in constant pursuit of the unexpected, the sinister, the eerie, the surprising, the beautiful and the perpetual deception of our lived environment.’

The exhibition Imagining Other Worlds invites the viewer into a dark enchanted world of obstacles, shaky ground, grainy images, blurry lines, rusty textures, elusive sounds and all the poetics of dirt and grime.

Jane Hughes is an Irish born artist, who works mainly with video and installation. She is currently finishing her MA in Environmental Art at Aalto University. She attained her BA in fine art from National College of Art & Design in Dublin in 2006. Since then she has been based in Berlin and involved in various artist run projects and collaborations. Since 2008 she has been a member of WerkStadt e.V, where she regularly organizes events and curates shows. Her work is currently on show in Berlin as a part of the group show New Horizons and the Contemporary Romantic in Kunstraum T27 until the 15th of February. A catalogue also accompanies the show. Hughes has exhibited widely internationally including Iceland, Germany, Finland, Ireland, Russia and the Netherlands in various project spaces, festivals, local and state galleries. 

For more info visit: www.janehughes.ie.

*We also officially launch the Space is the Place zine, which documents a collaborative project between Ptarmigan, XL Art Space and Kuvataideakademia* 

How ta tawk & dans rite is a site specific participatory performance incorporating dance, live music and digital art. Joey Chua Poh Yi, Rhys Turner, Anna Rouhu, and Guadalupe López will explore interchangeable professional roles and cultural norms in a performance which questions both the rites of passage into a given culture and the correctness of doing things right. Thematically How ta tawk & dans rite will link narrative vignettes of searching for love whilst taking a comic look at experiences encountered in foreign cultures.

This performance is supported by the National Arts Council Singapore. 

Image credit: Heini Ruuskanen

How ta tawk & dans rite is a site specific participatory performance incorporating dance, live music and digital art. Joey Chua Poh Yi, Rhys Turner, Anna Rouhu, and Guadalupe López will explore interchangeable professional roles and cultural norms in a performance which questions both the rites of passage into a given culture and the correctness of doing things right. Thematically How ta tawk & dans rite will link narrative vignettes of searching for love whilst taking a comic look at experiences encountered in foreign cultures.

How ta tawk & dans rite is a site specific participatory performance incorporating dance, live music and digital art. Joey Chua Poh Yi, Rhys Turner, Anna Rouhu, and Guadalupe López will explore interchangeable professional roles and cultural norms in a performance which questions both the rites of passage into a given culture and the correctness of doing things right. Thematically How ta tawk & dans rite will link narrative vignettes of searching for love whilst taking a comic look at experiences encountered in foreign cultures.

How ta tawk & dans rite is a site specific participatory performance incorporating dance and digital art. Joey Chua Poh Yi, Rhys Turner, Anna Rouhu, and Guadalupe López will explore interchangeable professional roles and cultural norms in a performance which questions both the rites of passage into a given culture and the correctness of doing things right. Thematically How ta tawk & dans rite will link narrative vignettes of searching for love whilst taking a comic look at experiences encountered in foreign cultures.

How ta tawk & dans rite is a site specific participatory performance incorporating dance, live music and digital art. Joey Chua Poh Yi, Rhys Turner, Anna Rouhu, and Guadalupe López will explore interchangeable professional roles and cultural norms in a performance which questions both the rites of passage into a given culture and the correctness of doing things right. Thematically How ta tawk & dans rite will link narrative vignettes of searching for love whilst taking a comic look at experiences encountered in foreign cultures.

This performance is supported by the National Arts Council Singapore. 

Image credit:  Heini Ruuskanen

| resonance | is based on practices that enable heightened states of sensory perception. The workshop shares methods for reverberating mindfully with other artists during duet and ensemble improvisation. We will focus on listening, sensing, and acting from sound, movement, and memory impulses. We will explore expansions and contractions of energy and sound in our bodies and in the space. We will trace the pathways that movement material takes between outside and inside: input - filtering - output - sending. Rather than reacting to other artists, we will cultivate a stance that allows us to observe, consider, and respond with as much of our selves as possible.

The group will explore questions like: How do we transmit messages that perpetuate in different forms through the space instead of dying out? How do we translate or morph messages into different media like writing, drawing, or assessing? How can we use vibration, reflection, sounding, panning, resounding, writing, and remembering to create a resonating body? 

William Bilwa Costa is a sound and visual artist/electronic musician/improviser. He has worked with movement artist Emily Sweeney as perpetual movement sound since 2006. He currently works internationally, generating research/ lab/ performance projects, actively cultivating opportunities for artists to work together on new interdisciplinary explorations. His most recent album | resonance | was released on earSnake records in 2011. Bilwa has been artist-in-residence at STEIM (Amsterdam), Gallery Titanik (Turku, Finland), PRISMA Forum (Oaxaca/Mexico City), Community Education Center, NEXUS/foundation for today’s art, and the Mascher Space Cooperative (Philadelphia). He has performed in Berlin at VeneKlasen/Werner Gallery in Spencer Sweeney’s exhibition Teatr Laboratorium; in Turku, Finland at the Wäinö Aaltonen Museum of Art; in Melbourne at The Substation; in Vienna at FLUTEN, a performance series in a defunct 19th-century water tower, and Raum 35. In Philadelphia he has played as part of Ensemble N_JP at the International House and presented his own work at Sought Foundation, <fidget> space, Mascher Space Cooperative, and Temple Gallery. He has been a guest lecturer at Turku University of Applied Sciences and Marlboro College. Collaboration with other musicians, dancers, and designers and use of improvisation are central to his practice. His collaborators include: Gene Coleman, Audrey Chen, Werner Moebius, Mariella Greil, Christian Schroeder, Michael McDermott, John J.H. Phillips, Maria Nurmela, J. Milo Taylor, Marina Peterson, Helena Espvall, Kimmo Modig, Martin Lanz Landazuri, Topias Tiheäsalo, Daniela Lehman, Klaus Janek, and Antje Velsinger. Bilwa works in both the performing and visual arts contexts. His electronic music and sound art often involve the abstraction of source material such as dancers’ breath and body sounds, acoustic musicians, and audio frequency feedback—sonic relics through which he pulls elements of specific spaces, times, and interactions into his work. He is interested insensory perception and subjectivity, and his work documents those acts of decipherment. He often uses multiple speakers placed throughout a space, generating a sensory environment rich in ambient, rhythmic, and spatial sound.

http://perpetualmvmtsnd.org/

This month's Svamp session will be held in Kaiku-galleria, as part of the Space is the Place project organised by Ptarmigan and XL Art Space (through Kuvataideakatemia).  We will have two guest facilitators, William Bilwa Costa and Kimmo Modig.  As always, this session is open to participation; we encourage any open-minded musicians or non-musicians to show up and bring something to make sound with.  Amplification will be limited.

William Bilwa Costa is a sound and visual artist/electronic musician/improviser. He has worked with movement artist Emily Sweeney as perpetual movement sound since 2006. He currently works internationally, generating research/ lab/ performance projects, actively cultivating opportunities for artists to work together on new interdisciplinary explorations. His most recent album | resonance | was released on earSnake records in 2011.

Bilwa works in both the performing and visual arts contexts. His electronic music and sound art often involve the abstraction of source material such as dancers’ breath and body sounds, acoustic musicians, and audio frequency feedback—sonic relics through which he pulls elements of specific spaces, times, and interactions into his work. He is interested in sensory perception and subjectivity, and his work documents those acts of decipherment. He often uses multiple speakers placed throughout a space, generating a sensory environment rich in ambient, rhythmic, and spatial sound.
http://perpetualmvmtsnd.org/

This lecture series is part of the public programming for the Space is the Place exhibition.

Wednesday 25/01, 17:15–17:45 - Kaiku Galleria

Pre-lecture artist presentation about "How ta tawk & dans rite” by Rhys Turner, Anna Rouhu & Guadalupe López

 

Wednesday 25/01, 18–21 - Auditorium - discussion facilitator Sari Kivinen

Eero Yli-Vakkuri & Oksasenkatu11 representatives - “Presenting views about artists as organisers, a few perspectives specific to Helsinki and Tampere”, 19:45–20:45 (in English)


Thursday 26/01, 18–21 - Auditorium - discussion facilitator Christine Langinauer

Christine Langinauer - “Taiteen uudet tilat”/”New spaces of art”, 18:00–18:40 (in Finnish) 

Harri Hämäläinen (Helsinki Hacklab) - “Yhteisölliset työpajat”/”Communal workshops”, 18:40–19:20 (in Finnish)

Anna Pakarinen & Liisa Jokinen (Riemu) - “Riemu-projekti & taidebloggaus”/“Riemu project & art blogging”, 19:40–20:20 (in Finnish) 

Toni Ledentsa & John W. Fail - “Strengthening autonomous culture”, 20:20–21:00 (in English)

A 2 day workshop for approximately 10 participants looking at culture as a form of resistance in society and our daily lives. Faciltated by Amal Laala as part of the Space is the Place exhibition workshops at Kuvataideakademia (co-organised by Kuvataideakademia, Ptarmigan & XL Art Space). 

Day 1: 24/01 klo 10-13
Introduction to the theme of cultural resistance and political trouble making, using the zines ‘How to make trouble and influence people’, occupy movement and other art and creative pranks.
Thinking about political interventions participants develop a 1 page comic/collage story line based on something they would like to change in society.
Discuss each person’s story and how they could go about putting it or a small part of it into action. Take some form of action and document.

Day 2: 27/01 klo 12-15
Participants come back with documentation of their intervention and turn it into a 1 page with text, images, etc.
They each now have two pages, which is collated into a zine of the workshop, photocopied for all the participants and distributed through photocopies and pdf. files on the internet.

Amal Laala is a socially engaged artist who's work is often temporary and fleeting, interacting with public space and communities to creatively activate discussion, experimentation and play. Strongly concept based she uses a range of mediums, from performance to projection, public installation and interventions to street art. Laala has had work as part of The XIV Biennale of young artists from Europe and the Mediterranean, Macedonia (2009) and of various residency programs, including Platform, Vaasa (2010) and Art Omi International Artist Residency, NY (2009). Working as an artist educator in Museums such as; Victoria and Albert Museum, Tate Britain and South London Gallery, she is currently Youth Programme Coordinator at the Helsinki Art Museum. Presently Laala is managing a satellite project, involving a six-month series of workshops with final outcomes shown at an off-site premises in conjunction with the museum and World Design Capital Helsinki. With a BA in Photography and a diploma in International Public Art, Laala is currently completing her MA in Environmental Art at Aalto school of Art and Design.

perfhop is a group who meets once a month to experiment with all kinds of ideas/ actions/ gestures/ sounds/ words etc that might possibly look/ sound/ feel like what is termed as performance art.

The first meeting of perfhop will take place at Kaiku Galleria during the exhibition Space is The Place co-organised by XL Art Space and Ptarmigan and others! 

Welcome to the first perfhop!

How do you experience space? Kaiku-gallery at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts will become a process-space during the final weeks of January. Visitors to the exhibition are invited to modify and change the space according to their own tastes. There will be materials available at the gallery but visitors can also bring their own materials. The process does not have a defined objective, neither does the outcome need to be called a work of art. The aim is to investigate organic spontaneous ways of expression and different ways to approach space. Signification, meaning and sense will be constructed as the space transforms. This will be achieved through presence in the space, via participation and as a result of how we think about the space.

The space and the process is open for all visitors. Over a period of ten days the process of the space will be documented with a time-lapse-video, which will be viewable as a collage of the process at Kaiku-gallery during 28.-29.1.2012.

Workshops as part of Space is the Place will be organized for students of the Fine Art Academy in the process-exhibition. A series of public lectures will be held in the auditorium that will, among other themes, address various aspects in connection to spatial experience.

Opening on Wednesday 18.1., 5-7 pm.
Performing: Tomplex feat Senqi + Mikke + VJ Random Doctors.

Closing event on Friday 27.1., 5–7 pm.
Performing: DJ Sternfeld feat. Senqi & Samuli Peltoniemi + Ellen Jeffrey.

Organizers: Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, Ptarmigan, XL Art Space

Please join us to celebrate FESTIVUS (a Festivus for the Rest of Us) at Oksasenkatu 11.  A free event featuring:

LIVE MUSIC BY:

• Nuslux
• Kulkija

PERFORMANCES BY:

• Steve Vanoni
• Kimmo Modig
   

SPECIAL FESTIVUS ACTIVITIES, including:

• Celebration of Festivus Pole
• Feats of Strength
• Airing of Grievances

+ video and other things : sushi, refreshments, and the usual stuff!

Free entry!

Kristīne Želve (LAT)

Do you want to change your perception?

Open up your senses, gain new awareness, and explore Helsinki in a totally new way!

In HELseeNKI you will have a blind-folded personal tour with a visually impaired guide who will share a slice of their everyday life in the city. 

Find out more about this upcoming project orchestrated by Ptarmigan's current artist-in-residence Johannes Blomqvist  by emailing: info[at]ptarmigan.fi with the subject heading HELseeNKI 

Join us at Oksasenkatu 11 this Sunday for another gathering of improvised soundmaking.  We are lucky to have Peter Nicholson as our guest workshop leader this month as he is en route to a short residency at Ptarmigan Tallinn.  Peter has been working for years with the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra and has been an integral part of the improvised music scene in Scotland and beyond.  Please check out his artist page for a full bio.

As always, this workshop is open to anyone!  Please bring something to make sound with.  Oksasenkatu 11 does not have a sound system so we wil be primarily acoustic; if you require amplification please bring it, and keep it small.  We are most excited to have a mixture of musicians and non-musicians here, so please don't be intimidated if you are curious!

More about Svamp on the project page. More about Peter Nicholson on his artist page. 

See you there!

This month artHOP will begin by exploring Helsinki's Rautatientori, to consider the cycles of industrious and leisurely travel that this site maintains. We will meet at the front of Platform 4 at 2pm sharp (look for the artHOP logo to find your guide). Following our Rautatientori observations we will visit 2-3 sites nearby (including a gallery and a garden). Welcome along to artHOP!

Join us for a performative presentation by Ptarmigan's artist-in-residence Johannes Blomqvist exploring ideas about perception and the senses, followed by a discussion with Heidi Gullberg about her installation Huoneeni / Mitt rum which is currently installed at XL Art Space. http://xlartspace.tumblr.com/ 

Photo courtesy of Johannes Blomqvist.