Long Live Wivi Lönn! Festival:
Performative Intervention & Roundtable Discussion / Redistributions

Saturday 21 May, 2022, 3–6 pm | Museum of Finnish Architecture: large exhibition hall, 2nd floor (online platforms of Frame Finland and #StopHatredNow ) 
Language: English
Participation: Free admission  | Pre-registration required

Redistributions is organised by Frame Contemporary Art Finland as part of its public programme Rehearsing Hospitalities. In collaboration with the anti-racist platform #StopHatredNow and the Museum of Finnish Architecture, it presents different approaches to redistribution of power and wealth while examining institutional and educational infra-architectures. 

Organised on Saturday 21 May 2022 at the Museum of Finnish Architecture, the event brings together a performative intervention by artist Karolina Kucia and a roundtable discussion with researcher Alemanji Aminkeng Atabong, artist Noah Fischer and Milla Kallio from the urban planning collective FEMMA Planning.

Welcome!

Timetable

3pm Performative intervention by Karolina Kucia (35 min)

Imagine, that for some reason, you cannot get in –  performance by Karolina Kucia

The performance Imagine, that for some reason you cannot get in is a guided tour through the building of The Museum of Finnish Architecture. The tour is based on the parasitic and monstrous strategies for inhabitations, dwellings, mutations and exits. Does “public” space exist, if there is no shared conception of “people” and common point of entry? What/who performs such a place… the host laying down the rules of the visit?.. the ghost whispering of violent pasts?… the guest, playing the insider while knowing too little?… or the pest, bringing about a possibility of surviving in dispossession? Featuring among others: a woman, a peasant, and toxoplasmosis.

3.35pm Break (10 min)

3.45pm Roundtable Discussion with Alemanji Aminkeng Atabong, Noah Fischer and Milla Kallio / FEMMA Planning (90 min) (onsite and audio-streamed on Frame’s Youtube channel)

Redistributions – A round-table discussion

Redistributions – A round-table discussion considers ways to challenge the toxic acts of unequally distributed wealth and power within contemporary public institutions and cultural contexts. It imagines a public field that acknowledges cultural and artistic labour and values in the communities that are not credited by the ruling capitalist elite. The discussion draws upon experiences from educational, artistic and spatial practices that challenge normalized structures of managing and distributing power and wealth. It draws from participants’ experiences with anti-racist educational practices, activism on the role of capitalism in cultural institutions and feminist urban planning practices. 

5.15pm Break (10 min)

5.25pm Performative intervention by Karolina Kucia (35 min)

Contributors

Alemanji Aminkeng Atabong  

Aminkeng A Alemanji researches issues of race, racism, antiracism and antiracism education. His research focuses on developing different strategies and methods of antiracism education in and out of schools. In January, he launched Finland’s first Antiracism application – Finland without Racism. Besides being a Docent in Sociology with specific expertise in Studies in Diversity, he is currently the Program Director for the Master of Social Exclusion at Åbo Akademi University.

Noah Fischer 

Noah Fischer is a Brooklyn-based maker, performer, and teacher, whose work asks: how is art affected by financial power and what can be done about it? Noah has expanded from kinetic installations into stage design and performance, organizing, writing, and direct action, contributing to public discourse over the role cultural institutions play within capitalism and on the debts that affect creative communities. As a founding member of Occupy Museums, a member of Gulf Labor Coalition, and a longtime collaborator with Berlin-based theatre group andcompany&Co, Noah balances collective practice with intensive studio sessions. His work has been seen with and without invitation at Guggenheim, MoMA, Brooklyn Museum, and in the 56th Venice Biennale, 7th Berlin Biennale and the 2017 Whitney Biennial.  Noah teaches at Parsons and NYU. During the pandemic, Noah has been writing and illustrating an epic science fiction novel about direct democracy and will premiere a stage performance about ants and collective intelligence in Berlin in June 2022. 

Karolina Kucia 

Karolina Kucia (she/her) is a performance artist with a background in sculpture and intermedia as well as in performance studies. At the moment she is also a doctoral candidate in the Theatre Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki. She develops organisational scores based on concepts of parasite, monster and slip in the context of precarisation of labour in post-neoliberal capitalism and the current form of art institutions.

Milla Kallio/FEMMA Planning

Milla Kallio is a co-founder of FEMMA Planning, an urban planning collective specialized in participatory planning. FEMMA Planning studies places and their identities as well as experiences of the residents together with local actors. At the heart of FEMMA Planning’s work is a commitment to understanding different urban realities and experiences. The main aim of the agency is to bring other perspectives to the planning process than the purely technical; it’s not enough to know what the experts think, planners and policymakers need to also be aware of the lived experiences of city-dwellers.

Frame Contemporary Art Finland & #StopHatredNow

Frame is an advocate for Finnish contemporary art. Frame supports international initiatives, facilitates professional partnerships, and encourages critical development of the field. Read more.

Redistributions is part of Frame’s public programme Rehearsing Hospitalities. In 2022, the programme focuses on practices that deal with the redistribution of power, wealth, and resources within the art field and society at large. 

In order to accumulate and reproduce their power and resources, privileged institutions and capitalist classes form specific social, spatial, legislative and economic structures that constrain the agency of individuals, especially those from marginalized communities. Neoliberal and racist structures among other forms of oppression are constantly reproduced and actioned through forms of economic, educational and spatial governing. The event considers ways in which to challenge these toxic acts of governing, class reproduction and marginalisation within contemporary (art) institutions, as well as broader cultural, educational and public contexts.

The event also forms one part of #StopHatredNow programme in 2022, taking place on 16 and 21 May.  #StopHatredNow is an intercultural and anti-racist platform organised and initiated by UrbanApa arts community in collaboration with several intercultural and art organisations. This year’s #StopHatredNow strives to find ways of coming together and actively practice coexistence.

Instructions for Participation

Registration closes on 18 May 2022. Register here.

All the events are free and open for everyone to attend, but have limited capacity and require registration in advance. The roundtable discussion will be audio-streamed through Frame’s YouTube channel. Please fill out the registration form, even if you wish to follow the discussion online.

Accessibility and Health Safety

Performances by Karolina Kucia are located at the Museum of Finnish Architecture (Kasarmikatu 24, 00130 Helsinki). The museum does not have an entrance with no access barriers. The starting point of the performance is outside at the back door in the inner courtyard of the building which is the most accessible entrance. The participatory performance takes the form of a guided tour, which involves moving through the museum building on several floors using the stairs or an elevator which does not meet accessibility requirements. For both sessions, audience capacity is 15 persons. Please look for detailed access info here.

The roundtable discussion can be accessed at the Museum of Finnish Architecture and online as a live soundstream, hosted on Frame’s Youtube Channel and #StopHatredNow’s website.

You are requested to follow these Ethical Guidelines during the event.

The Museum of Finnish Architecture’s building is not accessible. More information about the accessibility of the museum at this link. The Museum of Finnish Architecture recommends visitors over 12-year-old to wear a face mask or visor. More information about the health safety if the museum at this link. The Museum of Finnish Architecture is committed to the principles for a safer space in all museum’s activities. More information about the principles for a safer space at this link.

For more information

Jemina Lindholm
Manager of Learning and Public Programmes
Museum of Finnish Architecture
+358 45 7731 0476
jemina.lindholm@mfa.fi