HANNA LEVONEN-KANTOMAA, NINNI KORKALO
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immigrant integration class oriented art workshops are gener-ally held in their own classes as a part of the school day. The duration of the workshops varies from 3 to 4 hours, with 12-14 students and the starting point for the workshops is an art expe-rience, an artist meeting, a visit to the gallery, or a presentation.
The group is challenging because the participants do not have a common language. Therefore, body language, facial expres-sions, and gestures play a major role in the encounters. Through hands on work, we have noticed that despite the youths’ back-grounds, they have a strong motivation to learn and an ability to participate. Different exercises and activities promoting group cohesion work well. The youth are open-minded and try differ-ent plays, voice improvisation, and even dance.
The open workshops, organized on a weekly basis, are aimed at youth who have lived in Finland for a longer time. During the year, the experimental and target-oriented workshops have taken place for groups ranging from 5 to 16 persons. The atmos-phere of the workshops in general is informal and relaxed and while working together, matters related to the artistic process as well as the youth’s own experiences of the world are discussed.
The workshop unit aimed at the girl’s group is the most target-oriented and the group dynamic
is informal and trusting. Although the focus is more on doing, more so than in the other groups, the atmosphere is still relaxed and playful. With the girl’s group that includes a total of 8 girls aged 15-22, we will, among other things, carry out a photography series, which will be pre-sented in the museum and gallery during the fall of 2013.
During the past three years, the Art Reflects project has had different partners such as the Rovaniemi School of Visual Arts, the Youth Center Monde, the Ou-nasvaara School, and the Rovaniemi Art Museum. Their financial support has
made the activity possible by allowing us to carry out youth-oriented workshop units partly as a series. However, the project does not provide anybody with full-time employment.
LOOKING FOR NEW FORMS OF ACTIVITY AND OPERATIONAL MODELS
Already from the first brainstorming for the Art Reflects pro-ject, it was clear that we wanted to work with youth with an immigrant background, although the team members did not have any previous experience working with immigrant youth.
At this time, the Multi Art Association Piste had a three-year Myrsky (Storm) project funded by the Finnish Cultural Foun-dation in progress where, by means of movement, dance, and circus, the sense of belonging and self-expression of the youth was strengthened. Piste promised to tutor us as the project pro-gressed.
We realized very quickly, that we were at the heart of a public debate because the critical debate on immigration in Finland reared its head during the fall of 2009. We understood that the work we do with the youth contributes to the grass-roots level understanding of diversity and tolerance.
Steve Prat’s exhibit and workshop in Gallery Napa 2010
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The starting point for the Art Reflects project was to arrange art encounters and art workshops where different worlds col-lide for youth with an immigrant background. We also consider it important that a gallery that has been established as an arena of modern art be a non-institutional environment where it is easier to go and see art, for example, than an art museum4. Also among local artists, interest has arisen to search for new forms of activity in their own work and, both in terms of content and economics, to contribute to the dialogue. In the background, we can see cultural political changes such as the reduction in state grants that have set new challenges for the employment of artists and, through this, also for art education. On the other hand, the changes have also brought a new kind of demand for artists.
The common artistic vision has never been an absolute, but as the project has progressed, we have noticed that we see art as a part of society and of the dynamic. We are interested in tak-ing into account how to participate in solvtak-ing social problems through art or, similarly, how to support social values, such as
equality. Nonetheless, we are not interested only in reflecting, but also in acting and finding concrete solutions.
Our project is located in the field of contemporary art where the sense of community, interaction, and society have been emphasized for the last thirty years. The roles of the artist, au-dience, and artwork and the relationships between them have been forced to be re-defined when art has no longer fitted into the category of the following triptic: an individual artist, a work as a result of the artistic process, and an audience examining the works in their designated sites or facilities. The elements of art, artist, work, and audience still equally exist, but the boundaries between them are no longer so clear.
Contemporary artists react to social or societal change in a different way than the previous generations of artists. Instead of the utopian tasks of change, contemporary artists look for tem-porary solutions to the problems right now, right here. (Bour-riaud 2002, 13.) According to Helena Sederholm (1998, 48), when thinking about modern art, attention should be paid to the components such as interaction, participation, collabora-tion, and dialogic interaction.
There are also earlier trends in art history inspired by this dynamic. For example, the central idea of the Situationists was that art could also be spread out on the streets and not only in galleries and museums. In their activity, the constructing of the conditions and situations were emphasized. Another affin-ity is found within the Fluxus artists, for whom interaction was a particularly interesting thing in art as an event and a message, which requires both the sender’s and the receiver’s active par-ticipation. (Sederholm 1998, 179-181.)
From the artist’s point of view, the project can be considered an opportunity for the wider utilization of one’s own expertise.
Ninni Korkalo feels that participating in the Art Reflects project is a new, versatile way of being an artist. Korkalo has two dif-ferent roles in the project; firstly, she is an artist whose interest is in the artistic process and its outcome, and secondly, she is a project worker with her own views on the project activities that support art and multiculturalism. The roles may seem
paradoxi-The graffiti workshop in 2010. Photo: Ninni Korkalo COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
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cal, but the versatile job description is a fertile starting point for promoting interaction and the artist’s own professional ex-pertise.
Hanna Levonen-Kantomaa works on the project primarily from the point of view of art education and personal experi-ence. Special interest has been directed at the desire to work on a multidisciplinary team at the intersection of institutions. In her case, identity of a visual artist is not a static but rather an op-erational state constantly searching for its form and changing.
For example, Levonen-Kantomaa has never imagined earning a living by merely making her own art, but rather by bringing art to different sectors of the society as an art educator, as a com-munity artist or as a performance artist.
The Art Reflects project follows the development whereby the artist’s role has changed from the implementer of the work to the designer, principal author, and originator of artistic pro-cesses. Artists no longer just sell their works of art, but also their work contribution. (Sederholm 2000, 173.) The artist’s role and status in the Art Reflects project is not predetermined
and static. The project is a part of the art world where the art-ist’s job description also includes administrative duties, apply-ing for fundapply-ing, accountapply-ing, documentation, and evaluation in addition to making art.
Our project can be seen as an agent of change that has in-creased dialogue at many levels: between the school and art scene – the youth and artists – youth with an immigrant back-ground and Finns – the art scene and art education. Since the beginning of the project, it has been clear that we would operate outside the official curricula of schools, supplementing them.
The value or core of our activity is to act from the sidelines, which at its best enables an objective point of view and a re-flection on the normative constructions. We are moving inside