artHOP is a socially engaged participatory hopping betweens places. Some places will already be artistically charged (e.g. the gallery), whilst other places will challenge us to think about them in artistic ways (e.g. a dog show or industrial site). artHOP is a leisurely (yet active) Saturday afternoon hopping group and will meet every couple of weeks (please check this site for updates of dates and locations). 3-4 places will be visited each time. Welcome along! 

Clip Kino' events are self-organised screening events of short video clips & documentaries found online. It aims to drag aspects of normalised 'private' activity - of viewing downloaded content on one's own computer - into public space for screening, appreciation and debate. 'Media-environmental awareness' applies to include the social ecology of one's interests, desires, and attentions in one's peer-group and community.

A monthly performance series at XL artspace, emphasising an interpretation of the changing exhibitions which the invited performer/s are encouraged to engage and respond to. Durational Relational XL is about verbal and non-verbal conversation between the artists, the site, the artwork/s, and the audience. This series is developed through collaboration between Ptarmigan and XL artspace.

Throughout our short existence, Ptarmigan has hosted various residencies for artists and other creative producers.  These have sometimes been Helsinki-based people working in our old Nilsiänkatu space, or international visitors with longer-term projects.  At the moment, Ptarmigan Helsinki does not have a physical space and our funded Nordic-Baltic residency programme has finished, so our residency programme is on a bit of a hiatus.

However, we are always open to interesting ideas and projects.  Though we cannot offer funds, studio space, or accomodation, we are still eager to work with visiting projects in whatever capacity we can.  This may merely be through networking or organising talks and presentations, but it's something we can do at this moment.  

Instead of thinking that we are a residency centre without a centre, we see our community as the centre.  As always, we're most interested in proposals that don't fit inside the typical confines of art production.  With our focus on participatory projects, we are most excited by work that engages with the public and creates events and unusual interactions.  We love formats such as workshops, discussions, and bizarre approaches to educational formats -- and we always like to see residents who become involved with our ongoing projects.  And now, with our second location in Tallinn, we're excited to see projects that would have some presence in both countries.

If you are interested in working in Helsinki - or planning a project anyway that you'd like to collaborate with us on - please tell use about your ideas through our project proposal form.  Give us a sense of what you're looking for from us, and why you think Ptarmigan is a good platform for your work.  We can't promise anything, but we would still love to hear from you.

Labyrinths and Rings is an ongoing series at Ptarmigan that features artists, musicians, filmmakers, cultural producers, or any other creative practitioner presenting their work to our audience. The guests will make short presentations of their work and practice, which is followed by a moderated question and answer session/discussion.

All L&R events will feature either a DJ or live background music, and food will be served according to a different theme for each night.

If you are passing through Helsinki and would be interested in presenting your work at a Labyrinths and Rings, please contact us and propose your ideas.

Oksasenkatu 11 is an artist-run gallery and an artist collective located in the district of Töölö in central Helsinki. The collective consists of nine artists with diverse practices but with a shared interest in working outside of the established and institutionalised art world. Today there is a growing need of gaining a certain sovereignty back to the artists themselves, and Oksasenkatu is our humble attempt for this direction. In this sense Oksasenkatu tries to maintain a critical distance and independency, and to focus instead in collaboration. The object is to create a space for conversation and offer artists an opportunity to react to what’s happening in their surroundings and get their thoughts and works visible more easily in the current conditions.

In 2011, Ptarmigan is partnering with Oksasenkatu, based on their common sentiments regarding cultural dialogue in Helsinki.  Ptarmigan is now a project of Oksasenkatu 11, which is now a project of Ptarmigan.  The physical space will serve as a location for Ptarmigan-curated events as well as a merging of the two communities. 

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. 

PikseliÄHKY // PixelACHE is a festival of electronic art and subcultures, organised in Helsinki since year 2002.

Through a series of performances, exhibitions and club events, Pixelache presents playful projects both experimenting with and taking a critical approach to media and technology. In addition, the festival features practical workshops as well as seminars addressing current issues in the development of digital media.

Amongst the festival’s fields of interest are: experimental interaction and electronics; VJ culture and audiovisual performances; grassroot organising and networks; politics and economics of media/technology; media literacy and engaging environmental issues.

The name of the festival was found in an article that was trying to predict emerging new expressions. The word ‘pixelache’ (similar to ‘headache’) was supposed to describe the feeling that results from an overdose of digital media content. This overdose can happen easily if the content is too monotonic – which is the case if standards, formats, tools and design principles converge to a narrow set of options. Pixelache presents projects that try to break out of the box and expand the spectrum of how media and technology is used. Instead of showcasing existing projects, Pixelache focuses on presenting new work as well as early prototypes of experimental projects that challenge the dominant design.

Since year 2006, Pixelache has also been organising educational events around the year in Helsinki. These events offer a meeting point for the local Pixelache scene outside the festival period; they consist of artist presentations, workshops, seminars and other events.

From a local event in Helsinki, Pixelache has developed into an important hub within an international network of electronic arts festivals. Members of the Pixelache Network are Mal au Pixel (Paris), Pixelvärk (Stockholm), Piksel (Bergen), Pikslaverk (Reykjavik), Pixelazo (Colombia), Afropixel (Dakar) and PixelIST (Istanbul).

More information: network.pixelache.ac

A series of performative events throughout November-December 2011 in Helsinki and Tallinn orchestrated by Ptarmigan's current artist-in-residence Johannes Blomqvist.  

"Do you want to change your perception?"

Photo: Olga Prokhorova

Svamp is a regularly-scheduled workshop for music improvisation. It does not involve money, careers or obligations -- only interpersonal and sound relationships. Svamp sessions may range from collective improvisation to directed exercises or game-playing. You do NOT have to be a professional or trained musician -- just something with an interest in sound, an open mind, and the ability to listen. If you would like to join Svamp, please contact Ptarmigan via email with a brief description of your musical background/interests.  We are also looking for guest 'leaders' of Svamp, so please propose any ideas you have about what you might offer to the workshop.

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL is a school with no curriculum. At the moment, it operates as follows: first, classes are proposed by the public (I want to learn this or I want to teach this); then, people have the opportunity to sign up for the classes (I also want to learn that); finally, when enough people have expressed interest, the school finds a teacher and offers the class to those who signed up.

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL is not accredited, it does not give out degrees, and it has no affiliation with the public school system. It is a framework that supports autodidactic activities, operating under the assumption that everything is in everything.

Aalto University Laptop Orchestra aims to bring together all kinds of interests for sharing experimental/electronic music experience in live performances. AULO is an open group for experimenting collaborative laptop music both in academic and free context.

We are founding the first open Hackerspace (*) in the capital region of Finland. (* or "Makerspace", "FabLab", or whatever you want to call it!)

We are now recruiting more members who are willing to pay 15-25€/month, or whatever it takes to rent a reasonable work space in Helsinki. The more members we get, the cheaper it will be for each!

We are, among other DIY-projects, interested about applying electronics to various ideas, not just traditional hardware hacker stuff, but also in artistic and other sectors, like 3D-printing and so on. But of course it depends on our coming members, which kind of direction Helsinki Hacklab will eventually take.