Open call for artists’ residency

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Kristinestad Artists Residency_call 2020

Open call
 – Kristinestad, FINLAND August 2020: art, weaving and pottery

Kristinestad Artists’ Residency is a non-profit and artist/volunteer run programme in the idyllic wooden town of Kristinestad on the Finnish West coast. We are now inviting artists for a stay between 2 and 29 August 2020. Anyone wanting to make use of our weaving and pottery facilities is particularly welcome, but the programme is open to creatives of all art and craft disciplines.

If you are into nature, silence and slow living, this setting is for you. Resources and sources of inspiration also include vernacular architecture and traditional crafts. Looms, ceramics facilities, textile dyeing and lino cutting tools are available. Collaborations with the local community are possible, especially with schools. Exhibitions, shows, workshops etc. are encouraged.

We offer a variety of simple but comfortable accommodation options – mostly in traditional wooden buildings – and workspaces with wifi connection. Before and throughout the stay, residency hosts will be available for project research, linguistic assistance, finding materials and tools as well as establishing contacts locally. The residency fee is 600 Euro.
To apply, please send us an informal letter by email and tell us why you would like to come to Kristinestad and what you would like to do during your residency. We would like to hear from you by 15 March. The selection will be announced by 22 March.

For application instructions and more information, see our website http://www.kristinestadresidency.org

 

Crossing borders

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Order in varess_Jan2020.jpg
A shop in the oasis village of Varess.

There is only so much in a small Mauritanian boutique. Looks like a very healthy way of creating order in life with just a few cardboard boxes.

This is a short travelogue to begin this brand new year. I just took a Trarza minibus from Nouakchott to Saint-Louis and spent those three hours listening to old women babble in Hassanya and at times in a very animated accent in Wolof. They all laughed a lot and their tiny mobile phones kept ringing and since the mobile coverage was bad, they shouted into their phones and the calls would just drop and after each call there was this sudden silence for about thirty seconds. And it all started again. Half way on our route we had a stop for breakfast with a rather predictable menu: grilled meat, baguette and mint tea. No coffee in sight.

I had a small artist’s crisis lately with a thorough feeling that nobody is interested in what I do, at least not in this town anyway. Everybody seems to be more interested in just telling what they do.

When you cross borders here between countries, you are asked about your profession and I would answer: “artist,” or “artist photographer.” The border control then checks what they can find in their system based on what you had told them previously, or they write it up for future record. I always feel like I have committed a small crime having changed my profession from “commerçant” – that’s what stands on my residence card –  to “artist.” Now, crossing the border I again found this question a little intimidating and while the officer scrutinized my data with a very confused look on his face I thought it would have been so much easier to say “fisherman” or “pirogue owner.” Although I probably don’t look like neither. What if I said that I’m an “art residency coordinator?” They would probably choke in their mint tea, or just kick me out.

Crossover in Rosso_Jan2020.jpg
Crossing the Senegal river from Rosso-Senegal to Rosso-Mauritania.

Back in Saint-Louis, after the usual hundred or so handshakes, the desert still lingers in my mind and I predict that this year I will go quieter about my art practice and will concentrate more on the actual work. Perhaps I will show some of that work in the summer, somewhere.

ABC in Wolof

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Did you ever wonder why it matters to learn things in your mother tongue? And more so, to be able to also write it correctly? Many countries with colonial past still struggle with this and such is also the case of Senegal. We had the pleasure of hosting Clayton Junior, a designer from Brazil, at Waaw Centre for Art and Design for an art residency program and his project in collaboration with a local school in Saint-Louis is one very refreshing example of how art can contribute to pedagogical challenges. Please click on this link to access a video and read on!

Clayton Junior_sceenshot for video link.png

Doun Baba Dieye

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Doun Baba Dieye 26DEC2019_1 copy

Time to make new plans for a brand new year… As an incurable planner, I also need to remind myself of where I am, not just where I am going and here is that photo. Plastic trash has not been cut out of the photo – as there was none – nor have I used any filter or photo-shopped the image in any way. Looking at the photo one might consider this place as some sort of a paradise. But whose paradise are we talking about?

Two days ago we had a boat ride in Doun Baba Dieye, the “sunken village.” Although part of this village is now under water due to a man made mistake of connecting the Senegal river to the Atlantic ocean, the population of the village has been able to turn newly formed and salty land arable with the help of traditional knowledge and can now feed over seventy families. That’s just thrilling!

Doun Baba Dieye – a treetop in the village
Doun Baba Dieye – the plant that removes salt from sea water
Doun Baba Dieye – the plant that removes salt from sea water
Doun Baba Dieye – the plant that removes salt from sea water
Doun Baba Dieye – fishermen

Wishing you all a very inspiring New Year 2020!

Waaw

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Yes, Waaw*. In other words: Waaw Centre for Art and Design, the Artists’ Residence located in Saint-Louis, Senegal. This is a very short post to share with you a recent video that will briefly present what Waaw does. If you are more of a reader, you can also log on to Waaw’s homepage. Enjoy!

*Waaw is Wolof and means ‘yes’

Dubai Fever

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Immune or infected by Dubai fever?

AFROPOLIS

When I see cityscapes with the silhouettes of skyscrapers, I often wonder: how do these massive buildings make you feel in a city? Urban? Contemporary? Modern? Proud? Chic? Rich? Poor? Small?

Addis downtown area and some other parts of the city are growing fast into the skies creating striking contrasts with older buildings that are still standing next to them. You can’t but wonder whether Addis is contaminated with what is known as “Dubai fever?” This syndrome, or Dubaiization manifests itself with the desire to copy an urban model lined with capital and power, and it gives you the impression of a city designed overnight. Buildings look as if they were imported from another location and planted to a new one without the original context. This cut and paste method leaves out local history altogether.

Afropolis 2020 © Jarmo Pikkujamsa

When I was strolling the streets of Addis I could…

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Afropolis expo: a teaser

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A first milestone in my Afropolis photo project: a work-in-progress exhibition. I framed twelve prints last night to show what I am working on. This small show is combining some sleek-looking photos and rough handmade and “unfinished” frames made out of old windows that are very easy to come by here in Saint-Louis. Doing this show has helped me a lot in both choosing the photos that I want to include in later exhibitions and defining the theme or themes that this project will bring forward. These twelve photos were taken in Addis Ababa and once I will have more material from the other cities – Dakar, Nouakchott and Bamako – these themes will certainly develop more in the process. For now I can say that visually I hope to capture some of the contrasts of neighborhoods that are human in size and “organic” against the modern construction boom with glass and steel buildings reaching up in the skies, and human activity characterized by informality that takes place in between these two dynamics. More of that later with more photos!

Ndar Ndar Music & Café, Saint-Louis: A work-in-progress photo exhibition “Afropolis 2020” with a focus on African urban space: Addis Ababa. The final exhibition material will be made in platinum prints in summer 2020.