Dream big, imagine the Walking Iris

As an anthropologist, I am interested in art in everyday life, before it is framed as Art, as it were. Not only in the content and aesthetics of art, but also in the social, political and affective effects that works of art can contain, so I brought in several communities that I have been engaged with in Turku since I moved here some years ago.
I was reflecting throughout about performances themselves as events. Are they representational or actual? Because what is done on the stage, compared to theater or other art forms, the boundaries between stage and audiences are so much blurred. There’s so much interaction, the body is so physically in a very real way in touch and engaged with the work, not always even symbolic, so it’s very like lived art somehow. That was very curious for me, what does this lived art mean? I wanted to investigate it with my two groups.

I have facilitated a lot of workshops and different events in the past, but I haven’t done it for quite a while and so this was my first encounter with a group in that role for some time. Even though during the ambassadors training we were trying things out together, I felt a little bit odd; it was difficult to take the position of leader or facilitator, and especially because in one group pretty much everyone was older than me, some even retired, etc. But the method itself seemed a challenge: the beauty and the difficulty of the audience engagement experience was how to do the whole. Because you need to have a little bit of ice-breaking, a moment of witnessing or joining the art, moments of discussion and digestion of what has happened; and then you need to have these invitations to action, which is something collective and experiential. So how to do that in a way that is not asking too much of people, but still asking enough that we have peace, time, and space to land into actions and reflections, and then also have the time to digest and come out of them.

My journey happened in two independent paths: one focused on creativity and thinking, that I traveled with people interested in philosophy; and then a path to explore relationships and sense of belonging proposed for my own family and friends. It was an intense journey for me to sustain, but a very joyful one. I was learning all the time. Especially during the day with family and friends I felt that we were building something invisible throughout the day.

The Path of Ideas

Sfääri ry, is a local philosophical association that I am part of, which creates free popular philosophy events and discussions for general interest in Turku; it gathers curious and critically minded people. So I envisioned getting this community to think about what is performance art and how it could be related to philosophy. Does performance art offer us different ways to think and new perspectives? Can performance art be considered a form of thinking? Can it challenge philosophy or does it have something else to offer? What are the possibilities of creativity in critical thinking? I wanted to let the art speak and help us discuss, and this way it might connect more to our lives, and perhaps confer creativity in all of us.

Initially nobody was signing up, but then last minute people reacted and we went to see the two films on Thursday, we were seven, and we went to see the documentaries on Spanish artist Esther Ferrer Threads of time, and Swedish artist Gustaf Broms’ the Mystery of life, which were really good. There was enough affinity in the documentaries to provide a portrait of an artist and contextualize it over a long period of time. The screenings functioned a little bit as a crash course into performance art. And had a little bit of discussion before in between the two films, and afterwards for almost an hour at Kino Kilta café, reflected on the type of creativity seen there, and how the artists methods and styles were quite different: Ferrer analytic, mathematical and minimal, serious and stark; Broms more intuitive, earthly, playful and symbolic. I had planned to have the conversation while walking, as an experiment of sorts, but I let the situation be, instead of disrupting what was surfacing. Considering what this group would often do together, I was aware of pushing the boundaries. I would do so further by going to Gaëtan’s The River’s Chasing Us.

When we started walking it was actually difficult to manage the group, because I thought I’d give the instructions not immediately, but as we walked, and as soon as we were outside there was a little bit of dispersal (some people wanted to bike and so on), but the walk was really nice. But with those that were there it flowed quite nicely. I realized I cannot control everything, we need to work with what we have. Because during the walk the conversation would so quickly go into something else, so I had to learn to let go of straight lines (keeping the focus so tightly on the performance art, or the theme of creativity and thinking), and move in and out of it organically.

Then we went to see Gaëtan Rusquet’s work, about 20 minutes of it, then we left to have a conversation outside about it. The immediate reaction was strong and mixed. I, for one, confessed: “I really took you to see some Performance Art! Half-naked people moaning on the floor together”. One person thought it was absurd, nothing really going on there. But then a moment later exclaimed: “We have lost this. This sense of being and being connected to others. We easily sexualize nudity or read into it all these meanings, but it was not like that in the performance. They were just being and trying to connect, and we have lost that.” There were a variety of opinions and thoughts about the piece, and people were keen to share their thoughts. When the performance was over, we went upstairs where I had booked a dance studio. We couldn’t have food or drinks inside, so we left those for later and just sat in a circle on yoga mats and had a few moments just to breathe, land in our own bodies after having talked about those bodies on stage, and share any thoughts about the day. I wanted initially to share without words, using movements, sounds or gestures, but I realized this wasn’t an easy transition. However, while we were talking one person whom I didn’t know so well decided to do that. Inspired by Rusquet’s piece, she started wandering around like a curious cat barely touching all of us. And I was like, okay, it is happening! Many said that the day had been really nice, something completely different from their everyday lives, and that it had been invigorating for the mind and body. It was noticeable that people were smiling, calm and joyous during the closing circle. Somehow the mood shifted from critical thinking and analysis to a more emotional, holistic sense of being there and being present with each other. I think it was a beautiful and deep experience that we got to share.

Path of Sociality and Belonging

I did this journey with my friends and family living in Turku, Kuopio and Helsinki. Some of them had made travel arrangements already in the spring to join me, and it was nice because many of them have come to see me perform in some dance pieces. I have come to understand this kind of art consumption as forming a temporary experiential community, or forming almost a contemporary ritual. I had a deliberate method to create the composition of the day: everything about the day would be a surprise. I decided I would invite people to experience the day, art and join the experiences as they came, without prior notions. Many times throughout the day I said “thank you for trusting me and thank you for… not your sisu, but your investment of time and effort.” Staying present with uncertainty for an extended period of time takes a lot of trust. In order to get my group to grasp the concept of the day and not to give up halfway through, I had come up with this metaphor to describe the day, this flower called the Walking Iris… in Finnish it’s called Apostolimiekka, a flower that blooms only for one day. So I said, today is like this flower in that it blooms only for one day and you just have to be there to see it bloom. Although I risked sounding cheesy, it allowed me to communicate why it matters to be in on the whole experience. If you’re only here for half the day, then you won’t see the blossom. That was the nicest way I could get everybody to commit. Because the morning was a prelude to the latter part, which is where the magic happened.

I had asked them to join me to view some pieces together and talk about them, but also invited them to think about the role of seeing art in their lives; who they see it with, what effect it has on their relations, etc. It was also an opportunity for them to get to know each other more, because I know all of them, but the only other person who knows about everyone is my mother. She remembers everyone.

It was a heterogeneous group, some of them not having any contact to contemporary art, like my father, whereas some friends are professionals in the field and regular art goers. We were ten together. This heterogeneity was also important: people would come from quite different angles, which I hoped would create room for genuine and fruitful encounters. Some couldn’t attend the whole thing, coming in late or leaving early. I decided to be flexible with this, and I told them: “okay, this is like life, people come and go. We deal with it as it happens, and see if it changes the dynamics of the group and we can reflect on it and observe, but let’s just try to get everybody included, and everybody takes care of themselves and each other.” I gave a speech in the beginning when we met, to make sure about safety, mutual respect, personal needs and so on. I reminded them: “The sun is shining. Drink water, eat. I have some bananas within the bag if you need some.”
It was a full day, with a lot to prepare, where saw two exhibitions (Va Bene Fiatsi’s installation in Titanik and Parsa Kamehkhosh’s Calling Peace at Sibelius) and a performance (Fodczuk’s Dialogue with a Son) including conversations, walking, coffee, activities in between, and finishing with a glass of sparkling wine. I planned a two-hour break knowing people need to rest, and offered afternoon coffee for those who wanted to have it together.

Then we went to Titanik, where we sat on chairs around the installation and I used the visual learning method we had learned in the ambassador training. The art was static, and we could unpack it right there. It was really nice to build upon the information of what was in the gallery from what people shared. Many in my group were talking about the mud in the installation, but my dad said: No, for me it’s concrete. He is a builder, so for him the mud the artist had worked resembled something you make buildings out of. It was nice to be in a place to get the discrepancies of how we code artworks with different interpretations and information based on our backgrounds. We sat there for 45 minutes talking, laughing, some even crying, and making sense of the art in our own time. It was an important part of opening the conversation about art together, and especially for those who are not so used to interpreting art.

The Calling piece, instead, was challenging. I thought the piece would somehow open up, so I didn’t tell much about it. The only thing I said was a riddle that Taina my colleague had shared the day before: What is yours, but everybody else uses it? The answer was “your name” (the piece involved the artist’s mother repeatedly calling him). In retrospect, perhaps I could have given more context to watch the work, but I also knew that somebody in my group had lost their mother some time ago, and I didn’t want to underline that it’s all about missing your mother, and risk making it triggering for this person. I had arranged for us to go for afternoon coffee at this point, where we could discuss the piece in peace. Gathering for coffee and snacks around a shared table was a lovely way to bring the group closer, and we ended up sharing many ideas about the piece and social relationships. It was interesting how different people had the riddle in mind or not during the performance. My sister kept on thinking about it all throughout. She came up with Time as the answer, because Parsa’s work was about brushing teeth, and the artist had these heavy rocks attached to his wrists making the brushing action incredibly hard and taxing even to watch. For her, as a mother, everybody is always demanding her time. So the last thing she wants to do is see somebody brush their teeth, whether it’s her children or anybody. And then she was like “Oh my god, I came to Turku to watch somebody brush their teeth for a whole show!?” This made her think about time, the passing and value of time. Which is essential for the artist himself.

We gathered again at 6 at Manila courtyard, and this is where I started building my idea about relationships and belonging together more explicitly. I proposed an exercise where we would stand in a circle and pass a thread to one another, holding the extremes it with our fingers, creating a sort of web. My instruction was: you could pass it to anybody and look them in the eyes as you do. After a while, with a different colour yarn: “Pass it to someone who has taught you something today.” , and then with another color: “Pass this to someone with whom you shared a beautiful moment with today”, and so on, up to 5 colors.

That prepared us for the next action, in the same courtyard, where I proposed we whack a carpet, something we all do a few times a year around here in Finland, and often with our family. This was the closure of the experience and it was really powerful. I took out this beautiful kilim from Bosnia I had gotten some years ago (with a design that depicts the tree of life in it) and my mattopiiska, and I explained my idea that in relationships, like most of our everyday belongings, we need to shake off the dust. I just invited them to take turns, and very soon I saw people really going with the body onto it. Everybody went twice, and I gently encouraged them to go with the whole body into it, and something was definitely happening there. Even some of us realized then: we’re making a sound piece with the echo inside Manila’s courtyard.

Some of the artists came afterwards asking what we were doing. “Did you have your own performance piece going on?” I was like, “Oh, yeah.” But people also kept their distance, so it was nice to do it there, because it was clearly in the framework of the festival, but it was something of our own. It was visible from outside but wasn’t for the outside. The action created a sort of soft boundary between inside and outside.

Finally, we went to see Dialogue with the Son. A provocative piece dealing with the gaps and challenges of communicating with your loved ones when your view of the world is quite different from them, particularly as an artist. Through strong actions and very few words, the artist plays around harshly with objects, but also suggests coming together through affect and acceptance despite the strain. It was a lovely, mysterious and energizing piece to watch with this group. We closed the day with some drinks and relaxed conversation at the theater bar.

Reflections and echoes

My sister said that one of the best things about the day was to see me so dedicated and passionate about this performance art thing, and facilitating the workshops, how I and all the other ambassadors believed in what we were doing and were so enthusiastic about it, owning the material that we were delivering. I am sure this is due to the way in which María Villa had designed the audience ambassador approach so that it was not based on praising the performances art pieces per se. Instead, we were guided to design our workshops and group calls according to our own interests and passions in relation to the NPT programme.
My sister also said it was lovely to see the kind of community that I had found or built for myself here in Turku, and that it really looked like me. Then both her and my mom said they really want to go to see more contemporary art in general, even if they felt it was “so weird… we are such normal people!“ They loved how open-ended it was, and how you could think about it in so many different ways. This was surprising for me. They went to see the Anti Festival in Kuopio the following week. And afterwards my sister was expressing how she felt they had been missing out on this scene. “Like, what the hell is going on?” And my father was saying to her: “yeah, you really should take your kids to see some of this kind of stuff; this will be really interesting for them.”.

It was a full day, a true journey. I think it was the second training week that María said “dream big.” So, I was like, okay, I’ll do it! It really is a big ask, to ask for somebody to give their whole day to art. But I also emphasized from the beginning that it is not a long day. I just want to do many things with you and be able to do them at a nice pace, not going in a hurry anywhere. Knowing that we have the peace to do whatever we need to do and enjoy it.

I think it was really a formative experience for myself. I didn’t feel I was a facilitator rushing around with tasks, but just a human. A human guiding other humans through this experience that I’ve designed. It was not about a plan or a strategy, but about finding people where they were, or somehow washing in the space and time where we are together. It felt a bit like a ritual for myself to invite all these people who know me or I’ve met just recently, and offer this. And it is fine if they never meet each other again. I called us an “experiential community”: Can we experience something as a group just for a day? And then after that, the flower is no more.

This approach to facilitation is demanding for everybody. But Maria’s point was that this is what gets us to moments where we feel, “this is unbelievable, that I can create this with others.” Instead of just consuming a cultural event, you feel that you touch something real there with others. I also said to my groups that oftentimes I feel in today’s society things, experiences, art, are kind of piecemeal; experiences come packaged in chunks, everything becomes this easily graspable thing. And for themes like creativity and thinking, social, human relationships, we need longer durations, we need to linger. And this concept of duration landed nicely with both groups.

And this is something that I realized working with NPT: we’re not working from a theory, but from the piece outwards and onwards. It somehow makes the conversation more organic, but also a little bit chaotic. It is of course difficult to structure a conversation beforehand, especially when I do not know what the art piece will be like exactly. Precisely for that it is important to have enough time, and to plan the journey in a way that doesn’t make the chaos a bad thing. It’s difficult to know where the conversations will go. Frankly, for me it was more important to have an organic conversation inside and sometimes outside of the predictable topics of the artworks, rather than force people to stay in a box. There is definitely something to be aware of there, when coming together. For this story, I thought I could somehow try to write about that chaos, and why for me it is full of meaningful connections. I think the biggest magic was, as facilitator, when you have made the plan and if you believe in it, just to buckle up the belt and say: okay, I’m going to lead this group into this experience and be present all the way with it.