Just now I was chatting with a friend, and he mentioned that there is a seminar in Rovaniemi next month. Apparently it's been arranged by a bunch of people in Helsinki. They'll come here, then go to Lofoten in Norway.
The funny thing about this is that, although - as I understand it - it is supposed to be an open seminar, nobody here knows about it. So it begs the question: how open is it really?
From what I gather (and this will remain my opinion until proven otherwise), it seems that this event has been arranged so that a bunch of (I hate to use the term again but what the hell) southerners have arranged a nice trip for themselves to the north under artistic pretenses with no intention of involving anyone actually living here (at least in Rovaniemi) or encouraging them to participate.
I have to admit I am, as an artist living here, a little offended by this. I wonder why I'm not included in this private excursion, and excluded from all the nice parties that will undoubtedly be the focus of the event.
It brings to mind another recent exclusionary event - that of 'Rethinking Nordic Colonialism', the final event arranged by NIFCA. It's a little difficult to write about that because, again, Magneetti worked with them to get the Veturitalli after the exhibition finished, but there were issues there which I'll come to later.
So anyway, Rethinking Nordic Colonialism (or RNC to save my late night typing problems). NIFCA arranges a group of artists to come to Rovaniemi and show works. How many of the artists were from Rovaniemi? How many artist groups from Lapland were directly involved in planning the project?
None. There are contemporary artists living and working here - as I've mentioned before, it's not all porotaide (reindeer art).
Does anything seem odd that no artistic input was sought from the north? There's that little word in the RNC title: colonialism.
How could an arts institution as influential and aware as NIFCA arrange a traveling exhibition exploring issues of south-north colonialism and then create it in such a way that it was inherently colonialist? The exhibition seemed to be saying "finally, you people in Lapland can see some 'real' art". Yes indeed, 'real' art made by people not from here, living elsewhere, and presented to us by an organization based in the south to inform us and illustrate how we have been oppressed by power residing elsewhere.
Another not so funny thing happened over the Veturitalli arrangements. We managed to negotiate the use of Veturitalli after the RNC exhibition. As you may know we had big plans which came to nothing in the end, but anyway... Veturitalli was quite messy before NIFCA arrived and I agreed to help them by clearing out all the junk from the space. NIFCA then put down boards to cover the train servicing areas and made other constructions to tidy up the place and get it working. After we got the keys to Veturitalli, I got a phone call from one of the curators asking if Magneetti could contribute something to the costs of these boards and other equipment - some 2000€ if I recall. (Un)fortunately, Magneetti had/has no budget so we couldn't afford to pay for them, and when I explained this NIFCA kindly agreed to leave the boards there for us. However, a few weeks later I spoke to Anu Riestola from the Arts Council of Lapland, and she told me that the Arts Council had given NIFCA a grant to pay for these boards and materials. So why were we asked to pay for them?
NIFCA were actually very lucky. They had cut corners with what they were supposed to do with the money, utilizing it elsewhere. This, to be honest, is not unusual and I don't have a problem with it. Anu had a different point of view of course but in my experience you have to get money from where you can without any guarantees of funding, and if its necessary to fiddle the accounts and where the money goes then fair enough. It's hard enough putting together an event without much funding, ou have to cut corners somewhere. But I was a bit annoyed - it felt like we were being 'played' by NIFCA when we weren't even a part of the project in any real form.
The corners they cut could have got them in bigger trouble though. The roof of Veturitalli has some serious leaks. Big leaks. The kind of leaks where if it rains water gushes down from the roof in torrents. I warned them about this but apparently they did nothing. Fortunately for them it didn't rain during the exhibition, because one of these leaks would have sent water rushing down directly over one of the artist's installations and onto two flat-screen TVs. I imagine that would have caused quite a bang.
But to end back with the theme of secret seminars and colonialism: although I happily hope to be proven otherwise, history seems to be repeating itself again with another event arranged 'for' us which nobody knows about. If anyone has any information on this new exclusive seminar/event I'd be happy to hear it and eager to have my presumptions challenged.
Technorati Tags: art, colonialism, magneetti, NIFCA
No comments:
Post a Comment