~in waves~ intensive residency of feminist curating

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Reckitt, Helena. 2018. '~in waves~ intensive residency of feminist curating'. In: part 12: ~in waves~ intensive residency of feminist curating. Hanaholmen – the Swedish-Finnish Cultural Centre, Hanasaarenranta 5, 02100 Espoo, Finland 26-30 November 2018. [Conference or Workshop Item]

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Official URL: https://nynnyt.org/part-12-in-waves-intensive-resi...

Abstract or Description

Helena Reckitt was one of three workshop leaders for this intensive residency on feminist curating, organised by nynnyt, Orlan Ohtonen & Selina Väliheikki, a Helsinki-based feminist curatorial duo that works from and with the notion of friendship. She combined an introductory talk, close readings, and an exercise in intimate speech, listening, and narration to explore the deficit of care within the cultural sector.

The residency took flight from the notion of waves – waves, as Sara Ahmed(*) puts it, as both a movement that reaches outward through a series of motions and as something that needs to be built into a shelter. Waves can be the indefinite and the nonspecific, the in-between and the billowing. Waves can shape us and become a movement of change, but they can also be painful, they can also be painstaking, as they return to us, return us, make us return.
Together with invited guests and the participants of the residency, nynnyt wanted to think about the essence of waves in relation to both feminism and the curatorial, and to search for connections between questions that come from thinking of waves and those that come from daily practices of curating:
In the face of waves that precede us, how can we act and practice with consistency and renewal?
How to embrace the vague and endure the uncertain?
How can we build shared shelters on the grounds that are constantly shaken?
How to practice what we preach – how to build and not only represent?
If change is a wave whetting a stone, how can we stay with the wave?

Five workshop participants based in Sweden and five in Finland were chosen through an open call (this was a requirement from the funding body of Hanaholmen, in order to promote exchange between the two countries).

The residency opened with a semi-public meet and greet event, where invited guests working in Finland with feminism and curating met the workshop hosts and guests of the residency programme, hoping that this could be a chance to form future relations and alliances, friendships and dialogues. The evening included a performance from artists Anne Naukkarinen and Maarit Mustonen called WATER FALL 7.

Item Type:

Conference or Workshop Item (Other)

Additional Information:

Workshop participants were:
Iliane Kiefer, curator
Konstmusiksystrar: Rosanna Gunnarsson, composer and sound artist
Konstmusiksystrar: Anna Jakobsson, artist-researcher, director and producer
Annabell Lee Chin, artist
Sonya Lindfors, choreographer & ad UrbanApa
Jemina Lindholm, artist and art educator
Carlota Mir, curator
Elham Rahmati, artist and curator
Johanna Tuukkanen, ad ANTI festival
Niko Wearden, artist and facilitator

The other workshop leaders were:

- Read-in (participating members: Hyunju Chung, Serena Lee) a self-organized collective that experiments with the political, material, and physical implications of collective reading and the situatedness of any kind of reading activity. Recurring investigations include the legacy of feminist reading groups, reading aloud, the infectiousness of words, library and bookshelf research, reading (in) films, collective memorizing, (un-)disciplinary pedagogies and listening intonationally. Current members are Hyunju Chung, Svenja Engels, Annette Krauss, Serena Lee, Sanne Oorthuizen, Laura Pardo, Ying Que, and Marianna Takou.

- Timimie Märak, a poet, feminist, indigenous person, Sami queer activist in constant evolution, etc. Their passion and activism is expressed through various art forms, poetry in the form of text and rhythmic speech, theatre and dance among others.

The workshop organisers, nynnyt, are Orlan Ohtonen & Selina Väliheikki, a Helsinki-based feminist curatorial duo that works from and with the notion of friendship. Since 2013 nynnyt have worked within feminist curating: researching and questioning power relations of the contemporary art field and formulating a curatorial practice that echoes intersectional queer feminist politics; acknowledging and dismantling hierarchical, competitive, exploitative and exclusive structures of the art field; and finding methods of work that stem from empathy, solidarity, care and criticality.