Events
Project: Самостоятельное событие
 'Debates on Division' is an ongoing, interactive performance that deals with the complexity of current political reality and its implications. What begins as a fictional TV talk show with invited actors and artists ends with a performative procession to the European Parliament. Gluklya and Anna Bitkina thus aim to create a public forum that highlights different forms of human fragility and traumas caused by deviating from established political structures. |
 FreiAir Airline project (in Hebrew ''freier'' is used to describe someone who is easily fooled) is an art initiative that takes form of a fictional airline company. It is an experimental collective process of challenging the economic system and power relations in the neoliberal society and suggesting other forms of reciprocity and capital exchange. The FreiAir Airline audiences are invited to co-create a new enterprise of “freierness” and contribute to developing the new company, which main slogan "We give without receiving" subverts the idea of economic reciprocity and financial profit. |
 TOK Сurators and Inge Lāce will present the chapter Performing Words, Uttering Performance as a part of the 'D'Est: A Multi-Curatorial Online Platform for Video Art from the Former ‘East’ and ‘West’. The chapter focuses on works that reflect upon shifts in language and meaning and employ diverse silent, verbal, performative, activist, and other strategies to discuss collective and personal memory, identity, power relations, gender roles, and socio-political change. |
 Bringing together artists born in Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Russia, and Tajikistan, who experienced migration in the early age, Dreamland Never Found raises issues related to rethinking and redefinition of the concepts of memory, identity, torn connections and belonging to one’s roots in today’s world when we witness large-scale processes of migration and reshaping of borders and nations. It also addresses exile from the perspective of longing for childhood memories that intersect with bits of collective history and search of the past that is nowhere to be found. Turning to the antecedent and questioning what the future holds participating artists reexamine Soviet history through personal lenses and reflect upon the drastic changes in the 1990s that they juxtapose with the current processes at the post-Soviet territory. |
 ‘Debates on Division: When Private Becomes Public’ consists of a performance in Deichmanske Bibliotek in Grünerløkka, a public procession in the Grünerløkka area and an exhibition in the RAM Gallery. Constructed as a TV talk show the performance (r)evolve around personal stories of young people, aged 15-20, who live, study and work in Oslo. Young individuals of different ethnic and subcultural backgrounds bring to light important issues relating to their social and political positions, attitudes towards governmental structures, youth policy in Norway and visions of the future. |
 ‘(De)constructing Borders’ is the first exhibition of contemporary video art from Israel in Dnipro. It brings together videos and video installations by prominent and emerging Israeli artists, who in their works address various boundaries that we face in our everyday life - territorial, political, religious, ethnical, mental, public and personal. The concept of borders as well as processes of enforcing, moving and destroying them have always been crucial for all societies and considering the recent global sociopolitical transformations this issue becomes urgent again on international level. For many Israeli artists, reflection on questions of dis/integration, collective identity and memory, contested history and ideological changes have been central in their work and thus the exhibition focuses on processes and phenomena relevant not only to Israeli society but other countries as well. |
Project: The Russian Bar: Why Relocate? New approaches to neighborliness and interchange. Part 2
 Keniya Yurkova decided to enter communication with the community in a peculiar way. Making small installations using leftover of previous tenants, or reshaping common areas, even pranking a management company, she provoked discussions among the community members struggling with an unexpected and uninvited intrusion. Through interventions into spaces, through small transgressions questioning the guest status, then she pursued questions about vulnerable boundaries between notions of public and private, and conditions where hospitality turns into hostility. |
 Consisting of a performance, home videos, archival documents and found objects, the project revolves around the 'penal' ('pencil case' in Russian) of Pasha’s grandfather that became a symbolic object for the family reminding about the deportation of Ingrian Finnish population both by the Soviet authorities and the Nazis and hard labour of GULAG prisoners in the camps during and long after the war, which mainly dealt with tree cutting and woodworking. |
 The lecture will address the significance of the 1990s wave of immigration from Russia to Finland and the relations between the two countries through the prism of school education. Performed in the format of a school field trip, the lecture links theoretical interest to personal experience. Back in 1964, the school was built on the outskirts of Helsinki, and up until 1990s it served as a singular educational experiment in Soviet-Finnish relationships. |
 The new piece by Ilya Orlov presented in the Kallio library refers to literary theorist and critic Victor Shklovsky and his short period of exile in Finland. The sculpture is based on the early 1920s avant-garde visual motives and is dedicated to “Monument to a Scientific Error” (1930), the article that can be seen not as an opportunist text but rather a statement about the end of the formalist theory that didn’t fit into the new political reality. |
 In her lecture event Minna Henriksson will talk about similarities in discourses of ‘race’ in different periods of time in Finland toward Ingrians and other ethnically Finnish-related peoples in the Russian territory. The lecture will take place in the former Anatomy theater that is now part of the University of Helsinki. |
 In the focus of the newly commissioned series of prints by Kalle Hamm is the complex relations between homosexuality, gender identity and the institute of church as well as their representation in religion. |
Project: The Russian Bar: Why Relocate? New approaches to neighborliness and interchange
 The Speech Karaoke – as the name suggests – works in a similar way to a traditional karaoke. Instead of choosing between songs from a booklet, the user chooses between speeches. Within a relaxed atmosphere one can listen to speeches delivered by other karaoke bar guests – or try out how it feels to interpret someone's speech. Russian-Finnish Speech Karaoke will be based on texts in Russian, Finnish and English that touch upon political and human relations between Russia and Finland. |
 Art history is filled with names of male artists objectifying women but by by the end of the 1960s female artists determined to break free from the art world's oppressive structures. In her lecture Dr Katarina Lopatkina will discuss what strategies women in Russia and Finland used to reclaim their own voices in the society and arts. The lecture will take place in Monica Multicultural Women’s Association that assists immigrant women in Finland. |
 Yöväenteatteri / Nightshift theatre is a series of miniature performances by Livsmedlet theater that directs our perspective towards unnoticed destinies and stories inside urban landscapes. The performances are based on interviews of recent Russian emigrants who moved to Finland. Interactive format of the performance that can be viewed by no more than 10 people at a time makes it very intimate and relatable to all audiences, whether they've experienced migration or not. The performance will be held in the Helsinki city center and a priavte apartment. |
 On June 6 at Publics TOK will launch its new project ‘The Russian Bar: Why Relocate? New approach to neighborness and interchange’. The first part of the project will open with a conversation between artist, historian and writer Ilya Budraitskis and artist and researcher Sezgin Boynik, who will discuss the legacy of the Cold War and its effect on the cultural policy in the global and local sociopolitical and cultural contexts. |
Project: Critical Mass. Season 4
 The international conference ‘Fast Forward to the Future’ organized by TOK, a concluding event of the 4th season of the project ‘Critical Mass’, will analyze how various artistic and social practices might be involved in creating new ways of interacting and exchange with young people. Artists, curators, designers, architects, historians, policymakers and educators from Russia, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany and The Netherlands will present the results of their theoretical and practical research and experiences gained during work with the youths. The presentations will touch upon the history and current context of youth movements in Russia and Europe, principles of shaping youth policies in the situations of sociopolitical, economic and cultural challenges and the role of art in building up perspectives for young people. |
 Under the name Untold Stories Ruben Pater creates visual narratives about geopolitical issues. Projects are initiated in which research is followed by visual ways of storytelling for a wide audience, creating new relations between journalism and design. During his talk at the 'Mayak' school Ruben will speak about his past and ongoing project, his vision of design as profession and mission and his recently published book 'Politics of Design'. |
 During his talk in Taiga, Samuel will show a few of his video projects, most of them are linked to street photography and multiple ways of using the city. He's also going to present some of his projects as a designer and carpenter that he has done individually or with other European design and architect collectives. He will address topics that he finds relevant for his practice and will speak about artistic nomadism, public spaces, building relations with inhabitants and communities, carpentry work, recycling, travelling, working together, and street photography. Sam is a residenct of the 4th season of the project 'Critical Mass'. |
 TOK Сurators are pleased to invite you to an artist talk with Ştefan Constantinescu, new resident of the 4th season of Critical Mass. Ştefan is a visual artist and film director living and working in Stockholm. He works with various mediums including film, artist books and paintings approaching the political through introspection to challenge notions of identity, while working in and with issues of post-communist Romania. His work is often strongly autobiographical. Within the work, monuments are challenged as permanent inscriptions of memory, fictional films resemble unofficial documentaries, and artist books challenge history and education. The artist talk of Ştefan will revolve around his residency research, complete and ongoing projects and films. |
 In order to achieve something one has to turn a dream into a goal and make a detailed plan of its realization - this principle has been the motto for the residency of artist Alevtina Kakhidze in St Petersburg. The participant of the 4th season of TOK’s project ‘Critical Mass’ has been working with young people from the youth club ‘Energiya’ for three weeks. Over this time they have been discussing each other’s hopes and plans and Alevtina has been helping the young people to create individual routes of achieving their dreams. All the individual routes are to be presented at the event concluding Alevtina Kakhidze’s residency, which will be held in the format of a performative conference ‘Dream Cartographers’. All dream achievement strategies will be revealed!
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 Alevtina Kakhidze will hold an artist talk and speak about her recents works created for a number of large-scale international projects and biennials such as Manifesta 10, 6th Moscow biennial of contemporary art, performative program ‘Cabaret Kultura’ organized by the ‘V-A-C Live’ at the Whitechapel Gallery in London and some others. This presentation will lead to a discussion of Alevtina’s latest practice - teaching drawing to children and creating gardens with kids and grown-ups. Art works of Kakhidze are based on personal experiences and imagination, talking about consumer culture, gender, love, culture of protest, experience of war, plants and animals. |
 Every place carries stories for those who inhabit it. These stories consist for example of historical information and of personal memories that becomes associated to a location for different reasons. In Sandrina Lindgren’s and Ishmael Falke’s theatrical works as the “Livsmedlet theatre” the stories of the cities and its people are mixed and altered with the help of visual theatre. In this talk Ishmael Falke and Sandrina Lindgren will present their work on public spaces as well as their approach to community art. Through examples of previous works and through a short presentation of their current work with the Petrogradsky youth club performance group Rain People, Livsmedlet will discuss the term “urban animation” as well as their approach to political theatre. |
Project: States of Control
 Performative talk show “I’ve Got the Power!” deals with media reality, propaganda and post-truth with the participation of experts on media studies, journalists and exhibition artists. Speakers include Maxim Alyukov, Saara Ratilainen, Kalle Hamm, Alevtina Kakhidze, Anna Bitkina, and Maria Veits. The show anchorman is Denis Maksimov (Avenir Institute). Organized as part of the exhibition STATES OF CONTROL |
 ‘States of Control’ aims at constructing a continuous dialogue between artists and the public of different ages and generations in order to stimulate critical thinking around the topics of information manipulation, the history of propaganda, post-truth and constructing news during times of political unrest. The exhibition proposes and tests different methods of historical analysis, journalistic investigation, and creation of additional media discourses by artists from multiple countries and backgrounds. The exhibition is the largest event of the project 'States of Control' curated by TOK in Helsinki. |
A new play by Mikhail Kaluzhskiy 'Like It, Fake It!' deals with arts and media in the post-truth era: what happens when an artist enters hostile cultural and political context? 'An artist’s life and work are scrutinized, rumours spread freely, half-truth evolves into a big lie, social media influence general-interest media, media influence public opinion and cultural institutions. Foes are anonymous and elusive. Friends want you to not give up. What can be done?” The play continues the project 'States of Control' curated by TOK in Helsinki.
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 The red velvet curtain installed by Lado Darakhvelidze in the store-front window of Alkovi, juxtaposes historical political figures and iconic images and characters of today’s visual culture and media. Being extremely ideologically and politically charged, the images are combined with allegories of the mass and social media, the main tools of ‘cooking’ our worldview and opinions today. The work opens the project 'States of Control' on media realities, propaganda and post-truth curated by TOK in Helisnki. |