Book launch and discussion on Saturday 10.12.2016 at 16:00-19:00 at SIC (Tyynenmerenkatu 6 C, 3rd floor). Welcome!
Art has the power to question normative practices in our society and offer visions for possible futures. In times like these when xenophobia, misogyny and racism continue to prevail, we need to widen our perspectives and tools for visioning a brighter future. A change often requires looking back in time and rewriting the past.
How do we rewrite histories through the means of art? What kind of questions are relevant when we talk about equality and human rights in Finland? What kind of futures could Helsinki hold?
In Checkpoint Helsinki’s final event of the year, we will discuss utopias of Helsinki through four publications that are linked to our recent projects: Finnish Landscape, Remembering Silences, Next Helsinki and An Error in Helsinki.
Finnish Landscape is a book resulting from an exhibition curated by Joanna Warsza at the ethnographic Seurasaari open-air museum, created in 1909 to represent “Little Finland.” Among the contributors are Clémentine Deliss, Hanna Ohtonen, Jussi Parikka, Michael Taussig, Mikko Teräsvirta, Tuomas Toivonen, and the artists of the exhibition. Published by: Garret Publications and co-published by Checkpoint Helsinki.
An Error in Helsinki. Libretto for an opera buffa in three acts is produced on the occasion of the staging of the opera, ‘An Error in Helsinki’, for the Finnish National Opera and Ballet in 2016, based on long walks through Helsinki’s peripheries and centre. Created by artists Etcetera (Buenos Aires), Kalle Hamm & Dzamil Kamanger (Helsinki) and Larry Achiampong (London). Curated and edited by Zasha Colah (Clark House Initiative, Mumbai).
Remembering Silences is a publication that documents the three-part program curated by Ahmed Al-Nawas and presented in different forms and locations in Helsinki, in 2015-2016. The project explores how power operates in silence and how memory and memories could act as counter histories. Remembering Silences aims to diffract the written history of Helsinki and to revise the outdated representations of the city. Among the contributors are Ahmed Al-Nawas, Chimurenga, Minna Henriksson, Araba Evelyn Johnston-Arthur, Aino Korvensyrjä, Silta-collective and Selina Väliheikki.
The Helsinki Effect – Public Alternatives to the Guggenheim Model of Culture-Driven Development is a volume that catalogues the entries to “The Next Helsinki" competition, co-organized by Terreform, GULF and Checkpoint Helsinki in 2015. The book includes essays by leading urbanists, artists, and architects about the significance of the competition and the principles that inspired it. Contributors: Miguel Robles-Duran, Terike Haapoja, Juhani Pallasmaa, Andrew Ross, Michael Sorkin, Kaarin Taipale, Mabel O. Wilson and Sharon Zukin.