Uutinen

TAITEILIJAHAKU: KVEN CONNECTION

Hae taiteilijoiden liikkuvuusohjelmaan Vesisaareen Norjaan! Kven Connectionissa suomalais-norjalainen taiteilijapari viettää kuukauden kauden Vesisaaren taiteilijaresidenssissä vuosina 2016-17. Taiteilijat tutkivat alueen suomalaislähtöistä kveenikulttuuria ja jättävät paikalliseen yhteisöön taiteen menetelmin toteutetun jäljen, joka käsittelee kveenikulttuuria nykytaiteen kontekstissa. Hankkeen kuraattorina toimii Anastasia Patsey Pietarista (Saint Petersburg Art Residency (SPAR)/St. Petersburg Museum of Nonconformist Art). Kven Connectionin kieli on englanti. Alla ohjeet hakuun.
Julkaistu

Kven Connection is thematic artist mobility/residency project. It promotes artists’ working possibilities, conditions and mobility between Finnish Lapland and Finnmark province in Norway. Kven Connection explores modes of intercultural dialogue in the era of globalization and investigates the Kven tradition in the context of contemporary arts, transnational identities and cultural heritage. The Kvens are defined as Finnish-speaking people who immigrated to northern Troms and Finnmark from The North of Sweden, Finland and Russia mostly during the 18th and 19th centuries up till the 2nd World War. The Kvens are a national minority group and in 2005 the Kven language was recognized as a minority language in Norway.

Kven Connection is initiated by having four Finnish and four Norwegian artists from different fields of arts at Vadsø Artists’ Residency for a month residency period between December 2016 and August 2017. Two artists (Finnish and Norwegian) will be living in the residency at the same time. The residency artists are asked to leave a mark to the local community by using different methods of art. The mark can be artwork, happening, workshop, artist talk etc. The residency periods will be documented via publication as well as an exhibition will be produced about the Kven Connection. The exhibition will be presented in Vadsø, Norway in 2017 and the also most probably in Rovaniemi, Finland in 2018. Curator of Kven Connection is Anastasia Patsey from Saint Petersburg Art Residency (SPAR)/St. Petersburg Museum of Nonconformist Art.

The curatorial idea of the Kven Connection is based on the conceptual triad 'language-borders-migration'. From these three perspectives artists are invited to research the cultural identity of the Kven people today. The language, being one of the most discussed and relevant challenges among the Kvens, is the starting point. In opposition to a philological approach, the notion of the kven language is considered in the project as a synthetic identity building tool and along with the verbal component engages the language of clothes, gestures, food etc. The second issue to be focused on is the border. The mechanics of multiculturalism as a pan-European concept are reconsidered in the context of minorities' protection in the era of globalisation. Is it possible to reinvent the borders, necessary for protecting the core of the unique kven culture, in a new quality? It is a question of transparent and flexible borders, which are not meant to separate and block, but to share and unite. Last, but not least, the project raises up the question of migration and promotes mobility as natural human need and necessary condition for creating sustainable communities.

The main actors of the Kven Connection are Vadsø Ruija Kven Museum (Varanger Museum), Lapland Regional Office of Arts Promotion Centre Finland, LETKE - Performing Arts Centre of Lapland, Vadsø Arts Association and Finnmark Fylkeskommune.

Read more about Vadsø artist residency: www.ffk.no/kultur/gjesteatelier/

We are looking for four Norwegian (Finnmark, Troms, Norland) and four Finnish (Lapland) artists for Kven Connection. All professional artists living in these regions or belonging to professional artists’ associations of these regions can apply. The residency periods are: December 2016, March 2017, May 2017 and August 2017.

Apply by sending idea paper of the project you would like to initiate as a part of Kven Connection, your cv, 1-5 images of your artwork and preferred residency period to Anastasia Patsey: [email protected] by 22 February 2016 the latest. Selected artists will be informed by the end of March 2016. Travelling costs, living in the residency and artist fee (13 000 NOK = ca. 1 500 e) will be offered for the selected artists.