Art and meeting place KATSE/BLICKEN/LOOK! in Helsinki until November 24
An art exhibition of
self-portraits made with and by refugee women. The visitors have also a chance
to try and make own portraits using the same techniques. The workshop is led by film director Saara Cantell, actress and artist Henna Tanskanen together with coordinator Sahar Hashim Jameel.
Place: At the Helsinki city center
Vuorikatu 14 (the former tax office)
Time: On November 14th to 24th, daily from 11.00 to 18.00
An art exhibition of self-portraits made with and by refugee women. The visitors have also a chance to try and make own portraits using the same techniques. During two weeks, we offer an open living room for art and meetings with pop-up happenings
such as Story Sharing Café, a beauty salon and “Learn to say thanks in ten languages”. You can come and meet new people or just enjoy some tea or coffee, to have a discussion or to meditate. Our aim is to create an easily accessible place where all kinds of people can gather to join through a common art project.
LOOK!
How to connect with another person without a common language or with different religious or cultural backgrounds, or even with a different body language. The most simple bridge between two people is built through the gesture of a look. The current situation with asylum seekers can also be crystallized in the gesture of a look. It is too easy to look away. It is not always so easy to be looked at. With our looks we can judge, define and categorize, we can diminish a person to suit our prejudices. What happens when a person gets the power to define herself what she wants to reveal under the look of others?
Our art workshop KATSE/BLICKEN/LOOK! started from an attempt to look at another person in the eye, to make contact and to meet. Instead of the outer, cultural differences, we want to search for and focus on that which is similar in all of us. We want to make art together, to share our experiences. Our group includes ten women of which eight are either refugees or asylum seekers.
In our Finnish culture we tend to have prejudices towards women who come from nonwestern countries. We easily see them as oppressed, unindependent, weak and without a will of their own. Regardless of the culture or the background, being the object of somebody else’s look is a different experience for women than it is to men. In our workshop we have wanted to
research and share this experience with a group of women from different cultures.
The workshop is led by film director Saara Cantell, actress and artist Henna Tanskanen together with coordinator Sahar Hashim Jameel.
The happening has been supported by Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike).
The printing on the location is done in co-operation with Canon.
For more information, please contact: Henna Tanskanen, henna.henna.tanskanen(a)gmail.com, tel. 050 541 9177
Saara Cantell, saara.cantell(a)kolumbus.fi, tel. 050 440 1488
