Delulu
2023/24
It’s September in Mustarinda and I spend most of my residency in the bedroom.
There I sit in the armchair nursing my younger daughter.
She is not that small anymore and I was hoping I will get a lot done.
I stare at the wall, at the doors of the wardrobe, at the floor, at the ceiling.
The light is coming from the window.
There is a forest.
The older child is next to us in the cot nesting, coming to terms that she is not the only one anymore.
It’s time to go home and I hop in my car and I stop to nurse and I ride the train and I stop to nurse and doesn’t it all start with love.
Translation to the Finnish by Matias Loikala
Mustarinda Magazine 2024
“Correspondence”
Japanese Silk, Cotton, wood, thread, 9 x 13 cm.
Published in: Mustarinda Magazine 2024,
Editorial team: Neal Cahoon, Miina Kaartinen, mirko nikolić, and Anu Pasanen
Graphic design:
Thank you to Mustarinda residency, September 2023 and especilally to
Images by Anastasia Artemeva
Natural Disaster Preparation
Tokyo, Japan
with Steve Maher, 2023
Artemeva and Maher take us to Japan where they created their collaborative project developed in 2023 while Anastasia was undertaking residency with Arts Initiative Tokyo, supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation. Together with Steve Maher, they document human anticipation of natural and man-made catastrophe. Anastasia Artemeva and Steve Maher work collaboratively to present an artistic reflection of disaster preparation as it is culturally formatted in the metropolis of Tokyo city, where commodities for averting apocalyptic futures are as banally presented as any other consumer domestic products.
Images by author, Lauri Niskanen, Annika Niskanen, Nora Prits.
Please read more about the residency:
https://skr.fi/en/news/four-artists-awarded-grants-to-foreign-residencies/
https://www.a-i-t.net/en/blog/p16905/
Don't avoid me at the vast, mean, ethereal space
Eoin O’Dowd, Anastasia Artemeva & Steve Maher
Galleria Loisti
16.-29.10.24
exhibition is realised together with Eoin O’Dowd https://www.eoi
n-odowd.com/ and features his recent works.
Eoin O'Dowd's ongoing work invites viewers to examine the complex relationship between labor capital relations and the multifaceted impacts—physical, psychological, and spiritual—that arise from this dynamic. It addresses the exploitation of both physical and intellectual labor while questioning the absence of communal and spiritual value in our increasingly consumer-driven and alienating society. Using reclaimed factory materials, field recordings and devotional symbolism - their work highlights the spiritual damage caused by working conditions and the exploitation of workers' bodies and souls, reflecting a deepening wound on our collective psyche.
Each artist challenges societal expectations and conventions, often focusing on seemingly ordinary or mundane activities to reveal underlying power dynamics or hidden injustices.
Thank you https://skr.fi/en/ , https://www.a-i-t.net/en/, Eoin O’Dowd https://www.eoi
n-odowd.com/
Mökki/Дача
2017project website
And it has become incredibly important, also with regard to my roots and stuff. Just the other day I was thinking that I can’t wait to go there again, but what if the cottage burns down or something? Or if something else happens and it’s no longer there, what would I do?
A Finnish mökki and a Russian dacha usually refer to a seasonal holiday home in the countryside. Anastasia Artemeva and Liisa Ahlfors’ Russian-Finnish collaboration project Mökki / Дача at Galleria Huuto on Uudenmaankatu is an artistic depiction of the exploration into the similarities and differences between holiday homes in these two countries and cultures.
The starting points for our collaboration are both personal and political. Our families did not have a mökki or a dacha when we were young, even though they are very common in both cultures. We have also approached a phenomenon that has been discussed in the Finnish media in recent years, that of Russians buying land and holiday homes in lake areas that are considered a Finnish national landscape. With our exhibition we wanted to examine the Finnish and Russian idea of a mökki or a dacha as an institution that expresses the national identity and questions it by giving a voice to individual experiences and views of a mökki and dacha on both sides.
Using the material, interviews, personal photographs, memories and stories collected from Finnish mökki people as well as Russian dachniks who have moved to Finland, we have created an installation that will serve as a shared summer house in the middle of the city. Mökki / Дача is an attempt to create a space for cultural exchange with the aim of narrowing the gap between the two neighbouring countries, Finland and Russia.
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И она теперь для меня очень много значит, там я начинаю чувствовать свои корни. Как раз на днях я подумала о том, как меня тянет на дачу, ну а вдруг там, например, случится пожар? Или еще что-нибудь произойдет, и дачи больше не будет, что я буду делать?
Финский коттедж (фин.“мёкки”) и русская дача - это небольшой летний дом вдали от города. Проект Анастасии Артемьевой и Лиисы Алфорс Mökki / Дача представляет собой художественную манифестацию исследования сходств и различий дачного отдыха в культуре двух стран.
Отправной точкой нашей коллаборации стали как личные, так и политические факторы. У наших семей не было дачи, не смотря на то, что иметь собственную дачу было модно и распространено. С другой стороны, нам также интересен феномен, обсуждаемый в финской медиа в последнее время. Речь идет о русских гражданах, покупающих дома и участки в Финляндии на берегу озёр - в местах, символизирующих финское национальное достояние. С помощью нашей выставки мы хотим рассмотреть русскую и финскую дачную традицию как институцию, выражающую самоидентичность нации. Для этого мы решили узнать мнения о дачном отдыхе по обе стороны границы.
С помощью фотографий из личных архивов, предметов, воспоминаний, и историй, собранных от финских, а так же эмигрировавших в Финляндию русских дачников, мы сделали инсталляцию, которая станет общим летним домом посреди города. Mökki / Дача - это попытка создать пространство для культурного обмена и сблизить соседствующие страны, Финляндию и Россию.
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Ja se on saanut ihan älyttömän suuren merkityksen, myös juurien ja tommosen kannalta. Mä just mietin yks päivä et nyt kun mä ootan sitä niin paljon et mä pääsen sinne, et entä jos se mökki vaikka niinku palaa? Tai jotakin tapahtuis et sitä ei enää oliskaan, niin mitä mä sit tekisin?
Suomalaisella kesämökillä ja venäläisellä datsalla tarkoitetaan yleensä kausittain asuttavaa, maaseudulla sijaitsevaa vapaa-ajan asuntoa. Liisa Ahlforsin ja Anastasia Artemevan suomalais-venäläinen yhteistyö Mökki / Дача on taiteellinen ilmentymä tutkimusmatkasta näiden kahden maan ja kulttuurin vapaa-ajan asuntojen yhteneväisyyksiin ja eroavaisuuksiin.
Yhteistyömme lähtökohdat ovat sekä henkilökohtaiset että poliittiset. Kummankaan taiteilijan lapsuuden perheellä ei ole ollut kesämökkiä tai datsaa – huolimatta niiden tavanomaisuudesta molemmissa kulttuureissa. Samalla olemme tarttuneet suomalaisessa mediassa viime vuosina puhuttaneeseen ilmiöön, eli venäläisten maa- ja vapaa-ajan asuntokauppoihin suomalaiseksi kansallismaisemaksi mielletyiltä järvialueilta. Teoksella haluamme pohtia suomalais- ja venäläiskansallista ajatusta kesämökistä tai datsasta kansallista identiteettiä ilmaisevana instituutiona sekä kyseenalaistaa sen antamalla äänen yksilöllisille kokemuksille ja käsityksille kesämökistä ja datsasta puolin ja toisin.
Suomalaisilta kesämökkeilijöiltä ja Suomeen muuttaneilta venäläisiltä dachnikeilta keräämästämme materiaalista, haastatteluista, henkilökohtaisista valokuvista sekä muistoista ja tarinoista toteutamme tilataideteoksen, joka toimii jaettuna kesäkotina keskellä kaupunkia. Mökki / Дача on yritys luoda tila kulttuurivaihdolle ja kuroa yhteen näiden kahden naapurin, Suomen ja Venäjän, välistä kuilua.
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Liisa Ahlfors & Anastasia Artemeva
Mökki / Дача
Galleria Huuto Uudenmaankatu
20 June – 9 July 2017
https://mokkidatsa.wordpress.com
The Book of Hands
Käsikirja is a multidisciplinary event aimed at children from 4 years old onwards and their adults. The project focuses on exploring the significance of hands in various contexts and through different art disciplines. Participants will engage in activities such as drawing, dancing, crafting, and creating stories to explore the multifaceted role of hands in artistic expression, communication and every day life. Together we’ll also reflect about how we interact with each other, how we can care for and support each other with our hands.
As part of the project we produced a workbook - and interactive zine, which can be used during the session or independently at home. The publication is in four languages - Finnish, English, Ukrainian and Russian.
The events is organized with the support of The City of Espoo, the City of Vantaa, Helsinki City and the Arts promotion center Finland.
Languages: English, Finnish, Russian, Ukrainian
Working group: Anna Anisimova, children’s writer; Anastasia Artemeva, visual and socially-engaged artist; Tetiana Makhova, visual artist; Vera Lapitskaya, dance artist
Anastasia Artemeva (b.1989) is a visual and socially-engaged artist based in Helsinki. BA in Sculpture & Combined Media, Limerick School of Art & Design, Ireland (2012), MA Visual Culture & Contemporary Art. She works with textile, text, installation and photography. She is a diversity agent and a certified Dialogue cards facilitator.
Makhova Tetiana was born in 1987 in a small village in the Kherson region. Since childhood, she loved to draw and wanted to become an artist. She loves nature, fairy tales and mythology. This has always been reflected in her creative process. Higher education: - Kherson State University, bachelor's degree: Fine Arts, 2011 & Specialist degree: Fine Arts, Decorative Arts, Artistic Culture, 2012. For ten years after graduation, Makhova worked as a freelance artist, took part in exhibitions and festivals. Married. Mother of three children. During the military invasion in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, she found herself in deep within the occupied territory of Kherson region. After fleeing with her family to Finland, she began the restoration of her creative activity.
Since 2009, Vera Lapitskaya has worked both as an independent dance artist and in collaboration with various artists in Finland and internationally. She has implemented more than twenty dance projects aimed at different target groups. In her works Lapitskaya often combines dance and text, and creates works on the border between dance and theatre. In her artistic work she has been reimagining traditional art forms by pushing the borders and going beyond the surface of narrative meanings.Through the years she has been exploring a multi-layered proximity of human body to space, time, sounds, objects and environment. In her latest works Lapitskaya approached the following themes, among others: human loneliness and togetherness, identity, participation, difference, sameness, tolerance.
Anna Anisimova is a author of more than 13 books for children. She was born in 1983 in the small village Kropotkin in Eastern Siberia and spent her childhood there, among little mountains called «goltsy» and cedar elfin, in a very cold place where people mine gold—her book Kedrovyi Slonik (Cedar Little Elephant) tells about this place. Anna studied at Novosibirsk State University that is located in a Siberian scientific center called Akademgorodok. She is a journalist by diploma specialty. But while studying at the university Anna worked on the creation of newspapers for children and also she worked in the children's camps and created stories with children. Therefore when she started working as a journalist and editor she realized that writing for children is the thing that she like to do the most. So last ten years Anna works as a freelance-writer.
Käsikirja on monitaiteellinen tapahtuma, joka on suunnattu lapsille ja perheille. Projektin tavoitteena on pohtia, kuinka tärkeitä kädet ovat erilaisissa tilanteissa ja taiteen muodoissa. Yhdessä osallistujien kanssa luomme tarinoita, teemme käsitöitä, piirrämme ja tanssimme tutkiaksemme käsien monipuolista roolia taiteellisessa ilmaisussa, kommunikaatiossa ja arkipäivän elämässä. Pohdimme myös, miten vuorovaikutamme toistemme kanssa ja miten voimme hoitaa ja tukea toisiamme käsillämme.
Tapahtuma järjestetään Espoon kaupungin sekä Taiteen edistämiskeskuksen tuella.
Kielet: englanti, suomi, venäjä ja ukraina
Työryhmä: Anna Anisimova, lastenkirjailija; Anastasia Artemeva, visuaalinen ja yhteisötaiteilija; Tetiana Makhova, kuvataiteilija; Vera Lapitskaya, tanssitaiteilija