19.7.2024

Open call to the Seinäjoki Summer Artist’s Statue Committee!

Apply to join the Seinäjoki Summer Artist’s Statue Committee by filling application form!

The light-hearted statue committee is part of a project by The City of Seinäjoki Summer Artist 2024, Henri Airo. Henri’s project invites people to reflect on the meaning of statues, celebration and remembrance by addressing the Entrepreneur-Jussi statue at Seinäjoki Central Square. As a member of the statue committee, you will get to design a new identity for Entrepreneur-Jussi in a meeting with the summer artist and other members of the committee. Join the committee to brainstorm, discuss and leave your temporary mark on the Central Square!

Apply by using this form: https://link.webropol.com/s/statuecommittee

What does the committee do?

The Statue Committee will work together to design a new identity for Entrepreneur-Jussi. As background material the committee will use the responses to a public survey conducted by Henri Airo at the Central Square between 17 July to 24 July 2024. The Statue Committee will meet on 20 August 2024 at 5 pm.

Before the meeting, the Summer Artist will send a summary of the survey to each selected member of the committee, as well as a small preliminary task for the meeting. After that, the Statue Committee will meet once, on 20.8.2024 at 17:00 at the Kaleva Navetta Art and Culture Centre in Seinäjoki (Nyykoolinkatu 25). At the meeting, the committee, led by the Summer Artist, will design and decide on the new identity and motto of the statue of Entrepreneur-Jussi. The meeting of the statue committee will also be filmed as part of the Summer Artist project.

Henri Airo will unveil the statue’s new identity at an event held at the statue on the city-wide culture event Ilmiöiden yö, where Entrepreneur-Jussi will be temporarily renamed to its new role. As a honorarium for the meeting, members of the committee will receive a café gift card and two free tickets to the Kunsthalle Seinäjoki. In addition, each member will receive a certificate for their participation and a copy of the final publication of Henri Airo’s Summer Artist Project, to be completed in January 2025, which functions as a free-form history of the Entrepreneur-Jussi statue.

Would I be a good member of the committee?

The application is open to all ages and backgrounds. You don’t have to be an arts expert, a seasoned local or sprouting with ideas. Come and join us in deciding together on a momentary mark in the Seinäjoki’s urban space!

Six members of the committee will be selected by the Summer Artists on the basis of the applications received. The application period will continue until 11 August, and those selected will be notified on Monday 12 August. The committee will meet on 20 August.

The statue committee is part of an art project by Henri Airo, The City of Seinäjoki Summer Artist for 2024, which examines the history and the meanings attached to the statue of the Entrepreneur-Jussi (Matti Peltokangas and Aarne Hakala-Rahko, 1984) at the Seinäjoki Central Square. Through the Entrepreneur-Jussi, the summer artist investigates what kind of human images are considered particularly valuable. It invites people to reflect on the meaning of statues, celebration and remembrance now and in the future.

Since 2017, the City of Seinäjoki has hired a professional artist or fine arts student as a Summer Artist. The Summer Artist makes artistic work that in some way is visible to or engages the citizens of the city. The Summer Visual Artist is based at the Kunsthalle Seinäjoki.