5.10.2023

AARG 2023

 Learning from history for the complex challenges of today and the future

The theme of the AARG 2023 was learning from history for the complex challenges of today and the future. Topics included art as a catalyst in local communities, and drawing on the history of art spaces in curating and programming. The programme had contributions from curators and directors from different art institutions located in old industrial buildings, as well talks by artists. Invited speakers are artist Sigrid Holmwood from Sweden,  Lotte Juul Petersen from Rønnebæksholm konsthal in Denmark, curator Raluca Voinea from Romania, curator and artist Þorbjörg Jónsdóttir from Verksmiðjan á Hjalteyri art space in Iceland, director Johanna Rannula NART Narva Art Residencystä and musician Pia Siirala from Art University Finland.  All the presentation are about 25 minutes.  Link to the broadcast.

 

AARG is a gathering that explores current themes in contemporary art and rural areas. AARG Art and the Rural Gathering is a discussion platform and meeting place launched by the Kunsthalle Seinäjoki. The Kunsthalle provides a meeting place for art institutions’ representatives, a topical platform for discussion and an opportunity for artists and art practitioners to get to know each other and to develop the art field and its’ operating models.

Program AARG 2023

AARG is produced and facilitated by art producer Pii Anttila, Kunsthalle Seinäjoki

Artist Sigrid Holmwood:

Blue Wood, Black Iron – an exhibition drawing on local history

For the solo exhibition in Kunsthalle Seinäjoki, Holmwood researched plant dyeing traditions and peasant culture in Seinäjoki and the surrounding area. While touring local museums, examining the textiles on display and learning about the subject, the blue and black colours caught her attention. These colours appear in folk costumes and textiles, particularly in connection with a Lutheran revivalist movement, körttiläisyys. Later the colours became symbols of extreme right and nationalist movements. However, where did the colours blue and black come from?

In her artistic work, Holmwood investigates the historical connections of dye plants, pigments and other substances used in painting to the various developments of modernization, industrialization and colonialism. She has had numerous exhibitions internationally and graduated with a master’s degree in painting from the Royal College of Arts, London. Holmwood received her Doctor of Arts degree from Goldsmiths College, University of London, in 2021.

Director Lotte Juul Petersen:

The manor’s history as a basis for the konsthal’s activities

Rønnebæksholm Konsthal in Denmark bases its activities on the stories of the manor’s history as a basis for the critical exploration of contemporary society and culture through art exhibitions, residencies, public cultural events and our range of educational programmes for all ages. Director Lotte Juul Petersen opens up the konsthal’s program and activities on the presentation.  In January 2024, Nastja Säde Rönkkö’s solo exhibition Those Who Kept the Light, previously shown at Rønnebæksholm, will open at Seinäjoki Kunsthalle. Lotte Juul Petersen is since 2019 director of Kunsthal Rønnebæksholm in Næstved in Denmark. Prior to that she was the artist and programmes curator from 2008-2019 at Wysing Arts Centre in Cambridge in UK. She holds a MA in visual culture and art history from University of Copenhagen and Leeds. She took part in the Nordic Baltic Curatorial Platform from 2006-2007. She is a board member in the Foreningen af Kunsthaller i Danmark (Union for Kunsthalle in Denmark)

Curator, artist Þorbjörg Jónsdóttir:

Verksmiðjan á Hjalteyri art space in the Icelandic countryside

The herring factory in Hjalteyri, north Iceland was built in 1937 and closed its doors in 1966. Today, the concrete hull – Mjölhúsið/fishmeal building – is an art & project space. Verksmiðjan á Hjalteyri founded in 2008, is an art collective that runs an active art and culture program in the old herring factory in Hjalteyri. Jonsdottir is on the board of directors at the Verksmiðjan. The building, its story and its surroundings spur many fresh ideas, and the works shown are often produced especially with the factory in mind. At the moment Kunsthalle Seinäjoki is showing the Resonance exhibition that is an international group exhibition previously shown in 2021 at Verksmiðjan á Hjalteyri. Thorbjorg Jonsdottir is an experimental filmmaker from Iceland who holds an MFA degree in filmmaking from CalArts and a BA degree in visual arts from the Iceland University of the Arts. She has taught at California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles, the Iceland Academy of the Arts, and she is one of the founders and head instructors at Teenage Wasteland of the Arts, a radical arts program for teenagers and young people.

Break & Exhibition videos

Curator, critic Raluca Voinea:

Coexistence. A Chronology of Survival, 2019-2049

Raluca Voinea will give a video presentation that draws on our experience with the Tranzit Garden and with the Station, to imagine a future of practice in which we, and artistic work, become more sustainable out of need. The Experimental Station for Research on Art and Life, together with various artists, curators, researchers and cultural workers is located in the village of Silistea Snagovului, 40 km from Bucharest, Romania.  Raluca Voinea is an executive director of tranzit.ro. Kunsthalle Seinäjoki was for the first time involved in the Helsinki International Curatorial Programme 2022, where Raluca Voinea was selected as artist-in-residence at the HIAP residency. Voinea spent a month in Finland in November 2022 and will continue to collaborate with Kunsthalle Seinäjoki on an exhibition project.

Director Johanna Rannula:

History of the House -project

Each place has its own story but some stories are more exciting than others. The story of the building of Narva Art Residency, the former Kreenholm director’s villa, is particularly colorful and important for the city of Narva and its people. The director of NART Johanna Rannula talks about the new history project’s aims and agendas and what kind of artist interventions has been made during the project to open up the history of the place.  Johanna Rannula is the director of NART Narva Art Residency located on the Estonian-Russian border. NART was founded in 2015. It facilitates residencies, art exhibitions, talks and educational workshops. Rannula  is a cultural worker with an interdisciplinary academic background and has an MA in Urban Studies from the Estonian Academy of Arts. She was the exhibitions and events manager at Tallinn City Museum. She has experience as a documentary photography artist, has been on anthropological expeditions to Siberia, organizes hikes with animals, and is keen about Russian-speaking minority questions in Estonia.

 

Artist, musician Pia Siirala:

Case study: an artistic study of the Arctic indigenous personal song tradition

When a Chukchi is asked, how long a journey is, they have a habit of saying that it is as long as a song lasts. In rough terrain there is no use in measuring a journey by distance, but rather by time. Pia Siirala will talk about her research trips to northeastern Siberia, Kamchatka and Chukotka from 2008 to 2017 and the exhibition as part of her doctoral research at the University of Arts. A Personal Song is the heritage of the indigenous people of the Arctic. It characterises a person in the same way that they are characterised by the way that they speak. A person is identified through a Personal Song. Music begins before you hear it and continues after it is no longer audible, which creates an atmosphere of eternit. Pia Siirala studied at the Sibelius Academy, the Budapest Liszt Academy and at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory. She is concert master of Ensemble XXI, founded by conductor Lygia O’Riordan, with whom she has performed throughout Russia, Europe, Australasia and the Americas. Since the autumn of 2016, Siirala has carried out a PhD at the Sibelius Academy on the music of the indigenous people of the North-East Siberia.

The AARG 2023 programme was held in cooperation with the University of the Arts, Seinäjoki Unit and advisor Aura Seikkula from the Arts Promotion Centre Finland. The event was supported by Frame Contemporary Art Finland.