OPEN HOME – AVOIN KOTI 2013
A creative exploration of “home and community” in Pansio, a Finnish suburb of Turku, Finland. Artists and residents shared each other´s spaces, stories and asked questions about what home means to them. This project is part of research within contemporary urban settings that ask how our ideas of home are changing.
More people than ever before are moving to cities. The world population has now reached 6 billion and it is forecast to reach 9.2 billion by 2050. Almost all of this growth will be in urban areas.
During the 20th Century there was a massive increase in migration from less developed countries to the more developed countries. This reversed the trend of colonial migration patterns. People are able to move around the world as never before.
Many of us have concepts of more than one place as home. Many of us have long distance relationships and travel frequently to work between countries.
In this project we asked a number of questions about our idea of home and community:
What does home mean to you?
Where and what is your community?
We visited the home of many neighbors and made pictures from their living rooms that we printed in big size to prepare a photo studio on the street during Pansio´s day. We asked people to dress with costumes if they liked and pose in front of those pictures and us other alternative, we asked them to pose in front of a green screen to choose the enviroment (home) where they would like to be.
In relation to these questions we considered the following:
What does our home look like and why?
Do we see our communities as secure places to live?
Is inequality a problem in our cities?
Have we become a ‘society of eviction’ (as theorized by Jaques Ranciere who discusses the problems of inequality)
How important are images (commercial, personal, social networking) in our understanding of ourselves and our communities?
How can we explore the idea of the home and community using visual means, including photography and how can we engage people in this process?
From the pictures we took on Pansio´s day, we prepared postcards to give to the participants and invited them to a Grand Dinner at open space few days later.
HOME – a creative response
The community was engage with artists and students to explore the ideas at the site of their own homes and community.
A local community took place at the Grand Dinner event where people share ideas about the community, proposals, enjoy food (done by inmmigrant asociation of women in Turku “Daisy Ladies”) and we documentated the event. After all we prepared a book with all the information from the project and donated to the local library.
We used photographs, stories and memories to explore the multicultural nature of the area.
Methodology
The artists who lead the project offered a working method within this project that attempts to provide the opportunity for artists, students and others to work together as equally and without hierarchies as possible. The method enables a ‘temporary collective’ of individuals who shared the responsibility for the process and the creative outcomes.
Grand Dinner for 100 residents of Pansio in the field of football outdoorPansio´s football.
Outimaija Hakala did a performance on the table and a violinist play music at the same time.
Iranian food
Visual artists: Susana Nevado Beverley Carpenter,
Producer from TUAS: Sari Torvinen
Performance artists: Outimaija Hakala
Photograph students from TUAS: Oona Mustonen, Maria Kojonen, Sirja Moberg, Lilli Haapala, Ulla Kokki, Johanna Heikkilä
Young assistances from Pansio: Riku Reinikainen, Sofia Haapala, Paula Närvänen