Break 3: Brunch on Sunday 16th January

The informal discussion held during the brunch focused on the processes behind the works on display – the investigations that are momentarily paused, presented in some form and reflected on in the exhibition. Certain key concerns emerged as points of dialogue between the individual processes. Questions about the possibilities and limits of translation between the complex processes of exchange and the exhibition format also emerged and called for further examination.

MAPPINGS
Different approaches to the new cityscapes became appearant from the exhibition. The landmarks, architectural monuments, of the cities provided first points of orientation for many. As most visitors, tourists and others, these facades of the cities were obvious starting points that did, nevertheless, direct the investigations in a variety of directions. Another point of entry was offered by routines and routes of movement or commuting, which were recognisable both in their differences and similarities between the two cities. Mappings of the city have ended up, therefore, reflecting also the complex evolving map of the project.

MONUMENTS
Focusing on the public faces of the cities Abigail had been creating her own archive out of old picture books, comparing images of the same landmarks over decades and merging these documents of different eras together. The monuments became, thus, sites of temporal layers, suggestive of the historical shifts and complex stratas of urban life they had been wittnesses as well as signifiers to. The cut designs that link the two moments represented in the pages suggest possible portals for timetravel, like openings within the frames of the books. The customised books are presented in a sculpturally improvised display cabinet, not unlike the designs themselves chiseled out of an old table.

Chris had also approached the city searching for key monuments, Alvar Aalto’s buildings. The swiftly drawn improvised maps are tangible clues to the exchanges this mission encouraged between the visitor and the locals. The directions to a number of architectural landmarks generated a complex map of the city, where the collective codes entwine with personal views. The search for sites turned into an attempt to find a common ground or a language. The layered significations of these buildings are tapped on also in the models that bring everyday elements into dialogue with the monumental forms.

Anu’s work was not discussed directly, as she was not present herself, but it could also be seen to focus on specific landmarks, geographical points that in their visibility, to and from, give structure to the huge city.

In the exhibition installation many specific points of connections emerged between the individual works that created formal as well as suggested thematic links between them. Certain monuments in Helsinki seemed to have found their way to the British artists’ works: Finlandia house appeared in both Chris’ and Abigail’s pieces, while the Cathedral connected visually Abigail’s installation to Irit & Isaac’s.

ROUTES AND ROUTINES
Minna paid attention not to the monuments, but instead on the ways people inhabit the city. She was interested in the routines and adapted routes that direct them, as well as the pauses or unfocused wanderings that disrupt the steady flow of directed movement. The selection from the collected material draws attention to the speedy rhythms of the city and the different ways people make space for themselves in the public realm with, for example, various actions that seem to aim at justifying their uncomfortable inaction when forced to pause and wait.

Isaac and Irit took as one of their points of focus commuting, and particularly the free newspaper “Metro” that has local versions in both cities. The slightly different visual world view offered by the two papers hints at the subtle differences of the local readers, their everyday and journeys around the cities. As the artists collected the newspapers every day for a week, one in each city, they also connected the two cities through this shared temporary ritual that took place every morning.

Behind the scenes Abigail had also formed a personal map of Helsinki – now on her third visit to the city certain sites, from swimming pool to breakfast cafe, had clearly become focal points for her days there.

INTERVENTIONS
The little heater Chris customised and placed outside the gallery appeared as yet another gesture towards the city and its inhabitants. Picking up on the local routine of smoking outside the buildings, he aimed at marking out a new kind of a space, warming up the otherwise unspecific part of public sidewalk. It became a space of address, and of possible exchange, even though the heat did not carry far in the cold air. Set high on a stand, it literally faced the viewers and passers by, but also unexpectedly formed a relationship with a similarly shiny metal bin next to it.

Simo’s proposal for a public monument did not directly touch on either of the cities, their landmarks or athmosphere, yet focused attention to shared urban codes or even ethos that affect our engagement with and within cities. The suggested monument celebrates surrender to ecstacy, letting go of the performed public roles and dependencies on social structures, becoming absorbed in individual emotional and sexual fulfilment. Classical formal language with all its symbolism lends itself to the contemporary performance of the self as the boundaries of public and private as well as cultural and natural blur. Whether considered as realisable or just a suggestion, the proposal works as an affirmative opening for discussion and re-signification. Both as a conceptual and a concrete intervention it makes space for experience that troubles the structures and norms that shape the social realm and our participation in it.

All of the investigations, in some way or another, could be seen to have made interventions into the public space of the city and disrupted the codes and conventions that direct the inhabitation of these spaces – observing and collecting unexpected things, using the routes and points of orientation for unusual purposes, reading signs in another way and encouraging new kinds of dialogues.

TRANSLATIONS
Crucially in the discussion certain problems, inevitable and necessary perhaps, were recognised in the transferal of these complex processes into the gallery. It was difficult to translate the ongoing investigations into presentable works, or any kinds of presentations. The serious challenge posed by the exhibition, a pause in the middle of a journey, was to give a glimpse into the individual and collective processes of research and exchange. How well it may have managed in its task, is up to the viewers to judge, but it definitely offered an invaluable moment of reflection in the project and a number of further questions to concentrate on and attempt to solve as the project proceeds.