Finnish-Russian School: Immigration as Actualization

  • Finnish-Russian school, sketch by Osmo Sipari
    1/4 | Finnish-Russian school, sketch by Osmo Sipari
  • Mock-up of the Finnish-Russian school
    2/4 | Mock-up of the Finnish-Russian school
  • Finnish-Russian school, 2018, photo by Taneli Viitahuhta
    3/4 | Finnish-Russian school, 2018, photo by Taneli Viitahuhta
  • Finnish-Russian school, 2018, photo by Taneli Viitahuhta
    4/4 | Finnish-Russian school, 2018, photo by Taneli Viitahuhta
Photo
What: 
Lecture
Where: 
Finnish-Russian school, Kaarelankuja 2, Helsinki
When:
06.09.2018 - 18:00

FINNISH-RUSSIAN SCHOOL: IMMIGRATION AS ACTUALIZATION 

Performative lecture  by Taneli Viitahuhta

September 6, 19.00
Finnish-Russian school, Kaarelankuja 2
 
There will be an organized bus trip to the school. The meeting point is on Mannerheiminaukio, next to Kiasma (Ventoniemi logo on the bus)
Meeting time is 18.00. Space on the bus is limited. Please register to the event here.
 

 

Part of ‘The Russian Bar: Why Relocate? New approach to neighbourliness and interchange’ August-September events program

The project 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. The lecture by Taneli Viitahuhta, a former pupil of the school, links theoretical interest to personal experience. The Finnish-Russian school is the oldest bilingual educaitonal institution in Finland, which was founded in 1955 and  up until 1990s it served as a singular educational experiment in Soviet-Finnish relationships. In 1964 it moved to its current building at the outskirts of Helsinki, which was designed by Finnish architect Osmo Sipari. 

Since in 2019 the building will be demolished, we hold a commemorative event in the form of a school field trip. The audience is invited to take a bus together to the school where Taneli Viitahuhta gives a performative lecture, a theoretical and personal take on the 1990s experience of immigration and political change.

The participants of the event will also be invited to enter the hallucinatory world of historical SF (Suomi Finland/Soviet Finland) in the form of a new art work commissioned frpm the artist Marja Viitahuhta for 'The Russian Bar'. 

The recording of the lecture Finnish-Russian School: Immigration as Actualization by Taneli Viitahuhta is available online.  

 

Taneli Viitahuhta is Helsinki based researcher, writer and sound worker. He is affiliated academically with University of Jyväskylä, musically with Simultaneli and Horst Quartet, and theoretically with Rab-Rab. His recent publications deal with aesthetics of eco-Fascism, theory of value in art, and philosophy of musical free impovisation. He is currently working on a book about free jazz beyond cold war narrative. 
 
 
Marja Viitahuhta (formerly Mikkonen), born 1979, is a Helsinki -based artist and filmmaker. Her works range from films, performances and installations to photography and collage. She holds a BA degree in performance art from the Turku Polytechnic Arts Academy and an MFA degree from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts. She has been awarded internationally at Cannes Film Festival, Stuttgarter Filmwinter, Mediawave and L’Alternativa film festival. Viitahuhta's recurring themes focus on perception and experience of often female protagonists. Her works deconstruct individual identities, memories, or the idealised imagery of nations and landscapes. Her work often speaks in an intimate and personal tone and deals with existence and mortality. The text and image are set in a dialogue in Viitahuhta’s experimental language. Viitahuhta often bases her work on documentary filmmaking, archive material and found images as well as interviews.