AARG 2020
Developing the countryside with artistic collaborations
AARG was a platform for discussion and a place of coming together for art institutions, curators and other art professionals whose work is concentrated in the countryside. The program guidelines of the Kunsthalle Seinäjoki draw from the questions and phenomena arising from the countryside and urban-rural interface. The Kunsthalle run the rural art development project Mullistaja in 2017 – 2019, in which models of co-operation were molded and have been later developed. AARG continues the work that began in the project. Networking, sharing of concerns, development and mutual support by building up productive relationships is the overall plan of the AARG.Learning from others what’s new in the countryside and in the rural arts creates more creative area development planning and perhaps even new funding models for contemporary art in the rural areas.
The first AARG was hosted as a live broadcast on December 10th 2020 in collaboration with Kunsthalle Seinäjoki art producer Pii Anttila, art advisor Aura Seikkula, the Finnish Art Promotion Centre, Head of the programme Jussi Koitela, Frame Contemporary Arts Finland, The head of the exhibitions Bodil Johanne Monrad Viborg Kunsthal (DK), director Mariangela Mendez Prencke, Havre Magasinet (SE), curators Kaspar Wimberley and Susanne Kudielka, Morning Boat (UK), curator Michele Horrigan, Askeaton Contemporary Arts (IR), artistic director Daniel Peltz, Rejmyre Art Lab (SE), curator Taru Elfving and artist Matthew Cowan, curator Yvonne Billimore.
AARG is an annual discussion event addressing current themes in contemporary art and the countryside. The program of the Kunsthalle Seinäjoki is based on countryside and issues and phenomena arising from the urban-rural interface.
Program
PRESENTATIONS & TALKS
Welcoming words by Kunsthalle Seinäjoki, exhibition coordinator Elina Teitti
Artist talk: Artist Matthew Cowan will tell about his practise and concept behind
the exhibition Wildness Makes This World. Interviewed by Taru Elfving.
Matthew Cowan’s participatory project Wildness Makes This World explores wildness as a mode of being at Kunsthalle Seinäjoki. Taru Elfving had a discussion with the artist about the wildness and Cowan’s way of working during the gathering. Taru Elfving is Helsinki-based curator and researcher with a practice focused on site-sensitive investigations
at the intersections of ecological and feminist thought.
Case Study: Art Producer Pii Anttila
Kunsthalle Seinäjoki developing
the countryside with artistic collaborations.
Art producer Pii Anttila in Kunsthalle Seinäjoki tells how Kunsthalle Seinäjoki has developed the countryside with the program planning
and artistic collaborations in the area.
Case Study: Professor at the Art University, Daniel Peltz.
Rural Contextual Practice at Rejmyre Art Lab’s Center for Peripheral Studies
Rejmyre’s Art lab’s artistic director Daniel Peltz, who is also a professor in the Art University in Helsinki,
gave a talk about rural contextual practise. Rejmyre Art LAB is an artist-run organization
and a long-term, place-based research project that creates spaces for making, reflection and intensive.
Case Study, curator Yvonne Billimore: Re-centring rurality: a site for collective
learning and exchange.
Curator Yvonne Billimore talked about Re-centring rurality as a site for collective learning
and exchange. Billimore is an artist-curator, working as associate programme curator at
Frame Contemporary Art Finland. Previously she worked at Scottish Sculpture Workshop in rural Aberdeenshire,
where she developed and produced a programme of residencies, projects, workshops and
public events. Her work facilitates situations for collective learning, exchange and experiences with
particular attention given to feminist and ecological practices.
VIDEO GREETINGS
Video greeting, Kaspar Wimberley & Susanne Kudielka, Morning Boat, Jersey, UK
Curators at The Morning Boat, which is an artist residency and laboratory for research and action,
Kaspar Wimberley and Susanne Kudielka will give insight of how their activities focus on local industries
in Jersey. Kudielka and Wimberley work internationally as artists, producers and curators, specialising
in site responsive public-art practices. The common thread that runs through their work is an
attempt to sensitise an audience to existing social, political or cultural conditions, exposing, negating
or interrogating the hierarchy of the moment. Morning Boat responds to an urgent need for a reflective
and meaningful public discourse on complex critical issues and real life practices that are central to the
island’s economy, social fabric and way of life.
Video greeting, Bodil Johanne Monrad, Viborg Kunsthal, Denmark
The head of the exhibitions Bodil Johanne Monrad giving her presentation
from Viborg Kunsthal, Denmark.
Video greeting, Michele Horrigan, Askeaton Contemporary Arts, Ireland
In the video greetings we will hear how Askeaton Contemporary Arts are running their programme.
Michele Horrigan is an artist and curator whose practice revolves around the legacies and potentials
of environment and site. Her curatorial energies have an emphasis on working with artists in site-specific
or context-led roles. Since 2006 she is founder and director of Askeaton Contemporary Arts
(ACA), facilitating artist residencies, exhibitions and publication production in rural southwest Ireland.
In Askeaton, artists work in public spaces throughout the town. This form of engagement focuses on
the existing dynamics of the locale, intending to bring forward the diverse layers of daily life and create
a rich framework for subjective encounters.
Video greeting, Mariangela Mendez-Prencke, Havre Magasinet, Sweden
Director Mariangela Mendez Prencke sending her greetings from Havre Magasinet
in Boden Sweden.
PANEL DISCUSSION
Panel Discussion Contemporary Rural Agencies, moderator Aura Seikkula
Participants Taru Elfving, Pii Anttila, Daniel Peltz, Yvonne Billimore, Jussi Koitela,
Kaspar Wimberley and Susanne Kudielka
Program can be read from here.
Collaborators & funders: Art Promotion Centre Finland, Frame Contemporary Arts Finland,
Viborg Kunsthal and Havre Magasinet.
