Prison Outside
https://prisonspace.org/
Prison Outside is an independent international artistic research project focused on imprisonment, justice, and the role of the arts in the relationships between people in prisons and people outside. We are interested in perceptions of incarcerated persons in society, and how we can break the stereotypes and support them. We focus on artistic practices, be it prisoners’ own initiatives or designed educational projects that promote self-expression, solidarity and communication between people of all walks of life.
Prison Outside was founded in 2015. Since then I have worked with many artistis, communities and institutions, including Helsinki Prison, Esitystaiteen Keskus, Moscow State University of Psychology and Education, and Aalto University to name a few. Since 2017 Prison Outside has been collaborating with Translation Is Dialogue project and its author Arlene Tucker, working together to create the ongoing art exchange and interactive exhibition Free Translation.
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Prison outside (Vankila ulkona) hanke on keskittynyt vankeuden ja oikeuden teemoihin, sekä taiteen rooliin vankilassa ja vankilan ulkopuolella olevien ihmisten suhteissa. Olemme kiinnostuneet vankien ja ex-vankien käsityksistä sekä havainnoista yhteiskunnasta, ja miten voimme murtaa stereotypioita sekä tukea toisiamme. Keskitymme taiteellisen työskentelyn menetelmiin, niin vankien omiin aloitteisiin kuin suunniteltuihin koulutuksellisiin projekteihinkin, jotka edistävät itseilmaisua, solidaarisuutta ja kommunikaatiota erila
Prison Outside on itsenäinen taide ja tutkimus -projekti, joka on perustettu Helsingissä vuonna 2015 visuaalisen taiteilijan Anastasia Artemevan yhteistyössä paikallisten ja kansainvälisten luovien ammattilaisten, tutkijoiden ja kouluttajien kanssa. Visuaalinen taiteilija ja kasvattaja Arlene Tucker liittyi hankkeeseen vuonna 2017.
Nykyiset projektimme ovat online-alustan Vapaa käännös - Free Translation - ja siihen liittyvät työpajat, blogin Prison Space, jossa kirjoitamme vankeuden ympärillä olevista taiteellisista projekteista, ja Prison Outside kansainvälisiä konferensseja Helsingissä. Olemme tehneet yhteistyötä sellaisten organisaatioiden kanssa, kuten Kriminaalihuollon tukisäätiö, taidekoulu MAA ja Moskovan valtion psykologian ja koulutuksen yliopisto.
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Независимый научно-творческий проект Тюрьма Снаружи был основан в 2015 году. Он объединяет художников, музыкантов, преподавателей и исследователей. Мы изучаем темы социальной справедливости, лишения свободы, и роль искусства в отношении между людьми в тюрьме и за ее пределами. Объектом исследования являются как практики, инициированные самостоятельно, так и образовательные и культурные программы, которые проводятся организованно. Мы также исследуем отношение общества к заключенным и судимым людям, стигматизацию, и помощь в ре-социализации. С помощью нашей деятельности мы хотим поделиться опытом проведения социально-ангажированных художественных практик в во всем мире.
С 2017 года Prison Outside сотрудничает с проектом Translation Is Dialogue и его автором Арлин Такер, работая вместе над созданием продолжающегося художественного обмена и интерактивной выставки Free Translation.
info(at)prisonspace.org
Out first project Invisible Neighbours (Näkkymättömät Naapurit) project took place in September – October 2015, in collaboration with Kalasataman Taidetalkoot community art project of Performance art centre Eskus and Annika Niskanen. The idea was to make a connection between the inmates of Helsinki prison Sörkka and the residents of the nearby blocks of flats. For the duration of six weeks, the two groups made and signed postcards for each other at the meetings held both inside and outside the prison. We talked about our living environments, shared recepies, composed haiku, drew with fresh blueberry juice and made collective self-portraits.
Translation made with Mikhail Agafonov’s group on his visit to correctional facility for young female offenders in Russia. Интерпретация, выполненная на мастер-классе Михаила Агафонова в девичьей воспитательной колонии в России. - Words and Image, 2019
Free Translation is a multi-disciplinary exhibition showcasing international works generated from an open call to incarcerated people, ex-convicts, and anyone affected by imprisonment. It premiered at MAA-tila in Helsinki from November 15-29, 2018 as part of Prison Outside #2, and has since been showcased in Bokvilla, Helsinki and in Moscow State University of Psychology and Educaiton, Moscow, Russia. The exhibition also exists as an interactive online platform.
Free Translation exhibition makes use of the translation process as we interact and create new artworks in the gallery space and online. Your works on view will encourage the audience to prompt dialogue, inspire thoughts, and creatively activate the space. Your voice is heard and recognized.
The call for artworks is ongoing and open to all ages.
Your artistic contribution is very much appreciated. Works can be emailed to info@prisonspace.org or mailed to:
Free Translation
℅ Pixelache
Kaasutehtaankatu 1
00580 Helsinki
Finland
On the online gallery under each picture there is the possibility for you to interpret or comment on that piece. It can be in text, visual, or video format. Your translations and interpretations inspires more thoughts, feelings, and perspectives to be shared and to be sparked.
In our monthly Free Translation Sessions we first view and discuss the artworks of Free Translation exhibition. After our own artworks are created by means of interpretation or translation they are subsequently uploaded to the exhibition website. There they can be viewed by authors and the public, who will be able to create own response. To participate in the meeting, artistic skills are not required, and all materials are provided by the organizers. The “translation” will serve as inspiration for new feelings, thoughts and perspectives, and the creative interactions will continue.
Fabric book workshop - a story you can touch
I use a needle and thread to record our environment and create tactile story books. This project is about the many ways we see the world around us. The fabric sketcbhbooks are designed to record quickly and boldly our environment, or contemplatively and slowly the images in our mind. These books reference guide books of places of local and historical importance.
I create my own fabric sketches, sell blank fabric books (please click here to browse my online store), and invite participants to various indoor and outdoor textile workshops.
I have held workshops in Finland and in Japan, for groups of people ranging from textile professionals to a group home residents, people age 4 years and up, male and female participants. Depending on the time and interests of the participants, we can create a whole sketchbook from scratch, or we can instead do a series of quick images, using easily-available materials.
Image: Sheung Yiu @sheungyiuphoto - HIAP Suomenlinna Open Studios Spring 2021. Many thanks for support to Iraiida Lukka-de Groot.
Image: Sheung Yiu @sheungyiuphoto - HIAP Suomenlinna Open Studios Spring 2021. Many thanks for support to Iraiida Lukka-de Groot.In 2023 I travelled to Tokyo on a residency with Tokyo Arts Initiative AIT and with the support of Finnish Cultural Foundation. Japan is heaven for a domesticity admirer like myself. The array of useful domestic paraphernalia like various types of cloths, hooks, nets, packaging material and containers is astonishing. I had picked up several packages of sponges, they appealed to me with their uniformity, squishiness, and colour variety. I had made some experiments with sponges at the Kura house residency, and then decided to invite the workshop participants to play with these everyday materials. We had so much fun!.
Sora_to_Umi group home & welfare facility, Chiba, Japan, July 4, 2023 Image: AIT
AtelierA, Yoyogi Uehara, Tokyo July 2, 2023 Image: AIT
Mekin pääsimme reissullamme osallistumaan elämykselliseen PISTO-taidetyöpajaan, jonka Seinäjoen Taidehalli järjesti yhdessä Taitokeskuksen kanssa. Taiteilija Anastasia Artemevan ohjaamassa työpajassa pääsimme kokeilemaan tekstiilitaiteen tekemistä itse, kun saimme tehtäväksi luoda kankaisen luonnosvihkon. “Luonnostelu” kankaalle kirjoen on keskittymistä sekä kärsivällisyyttä vaativaa puuhaa: tekeminen on hidasta eikä kuvia voi pyyhkiä kumilla pois, mutta niitä voi halutessaan muokata. On myös kiinnostavaa, kuinka neulalla ja langalla merkintöjä tehdessä syntyy kankaan kääntöpuolelle ikään kuin “haamu” siitä, mitä näemme toisella puolella. Myös tällä kääntöpuolen varjokuvalla on hauska leikitellä. Ihastuin kirjontatöihin työpajan ansiosta ihan valtavasti: työskentely on kiireiselle mielelle ihanan meditatiivista puuhaa. Hurahdin oman luonnosvihkoni väkertämiseen niin antaumuksella, että olen jatkanut sen työstämistä vielä kotiin päästyänikin. Tämä oli todella inspiroiva kokemus!
-Jenni Rotonen, https://pupulandia.fi/2021/06/22/seinajoki-yllattava-kulttuurikohde-kesareissuille/
Kunsthalle Seinäjoki, june 2021, workshop I use these sketchbooks especially when traveling or camping and for this reason I look for ways to create lightweight, compact sets to take with me. I reappropriate old tins and cans and plastic bags, and use camping equipment as tools. I am constantly in the process of developing a kit, a set of materials and tools that I carry with me. The use of a variety of shapes and textures draw from open-ended toys and games for children, including the techniques and the aesthetics of Waldorf toys. Hand dyed using natural materials found at home like coffee and tea and frozen berries and beets leftover from dying Easter eggs. I use recycled materials like leftover fabric and packaging material. The fabrics and other materials that the books are made from allow for them to be washed and ironed.
You are invited to join the workshops where we sketch and explore together.
Image: Anastasia Artemeva. Venäjän tiede- ja kulttuurikeskus, Helsinki, Fabric book workshop with young people, 2017
Mekin pääsimme reissullamme osallistumaan elämykselliseen PISTO-taidetyöpajaan, jonka Seinäjoen Taidehalli järjesti yhdessä Taitokeskuksen kanssa. Taiteilija Anastasia Artemevan ohjaamassa työpajassa pääsimme kokeilemaan tekstiilitaiteen tekemistä itse, kun saimme tehtäväksi luoda kankaisen luonnosvihkon. “Luonnostelu” kankaalle kirjoen on keskittymistä sekä kärsivällisyyttä vaativaa puuhaa: tekeminen on hidasta eikä kuvia voi pyyhkiä kumilla pois, mutta niitä voi halutessaan muokata. On myös kiinnostavaa, kuinka neulalla ja langalla merkintöjä tehdessä syntyy kankaan kääntöpuolelle ikään kuin “haamu” siitä, mitä näemme toisella puolella. Myös tällä kääntöpuolen varjokuvalla on hauska leikitellä. Ihastuin kirjontatöihin työpajan ansiosta ihan valtavasti: työskentely on kiireiselle mielelle ihanan meditatiivista puuhaa. Hurahdin oman luonnosvihkoni väkertämiseen niin antaumuksella, että olen jatkanut sen työstämistä vielä kotiin päästyänikin. Tämä oli todella inspiroiva kokemus!
-Jenni Rotonen, https://pupulandia.fi/2021/06/22/seinajoki-yllattava-kulttuurikohde-kesareissuille/
Fabric books is a part of Recreation is a series of projects and multimedia installations around the act of sewing, the spaces of confinement, rest, and time. Through visual, performative and dialogical processes I will investigate assumed social roles, ideas of judgement, social and antisocial being, as well as personal and collective boundaries.
Recreation
ongoingRecreation is a series of projects and multimedia installations around the act of sewing, the spaces of confinement and ritual, and time. Through visual, performative and dialogical processes I investigate assumed social roles, ideas of judgement, social and antisocial being, as well as personal and collective boundaries.
This body of work will explore common rituals like keeping holiday homes or tending to a grave. I am interested in the spaces where these rituals happen, and how it affects our identity and how the body needs to adjust to accommodate for these.
Public office, Limerick, Ireland, ca. 2012Leftover Limbs
Anastasia Artemeva, Leftover Limbs Sewing kits (Recreation project)
Mixed media, found objects 2020
Series of 15 variable multiples, 10 x 10 cm
Yö Kekri ryhmänäyttely 24.-30.10.2022 Yö Galleria, Helsinki, Finland
Leftover Limbs are based on fabric craft kits that my mother bought for me when I was sick when I was little. They contain parts of unfinished stuffed toys that I have been creating since I was 5 years old. These artifacts are on the border of arts and crafts, artmaking as a profession and as a hobby, and the responsibilities and emotions that each of these activities entail.
Come join me and bring your unfinished, raw, half-baked idea. Does not need to be related to textiles at all. Just something you would like to work through in good company or individually.
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Schedule: Saturday 29.10. 11-15 at Yö Galleria (Lönnrotinkatu 33) and online
What you will need: You are encouraged to bring along an unfinished project. It can be a textiles project, but it does not have to be - a text, a drawing, a funding application. We will apply the concepts of sewing and mending to any possible processes. For those joining us on-site there will be a limited amount of materials available free of charge.
What we will do: We will get together and make. There will be a chance to share the experiences of dealing with unfinished projects, unused materials and the infinite to-do lists. What can we create from a cut out dress pattern even when it will no longer fit? What can we create with the fabric cut offs ? What is the meaning and the value in the materials and actions leftover, unused and undone? How can we preserve and value the unfinished work ?
We will learn sewing techniques, collage, spatial installation technique and will formulate concrete ideas for artistic works.
Limited number of participants. The course is offered free of charge.
A few participants will have the opportunity to participate on-site at Yö Galleria. (indicate in the registration form whether you prefer zoom or on-site)
The workshop is part of the Hybrid Art Workshop project of Yö ry.
The project is co-funded by the Uusimaa Regional Council through the Supporting sustainable growth and vitality of regions (UKKE funding).
Unfunished and lefotover art materials from the workshop participants: buttons by Päivi and hand-made paper by Heini.
Fabric Sketchbooks
ongoing project
Shaped like school exercises copy books, the objects are made from recycled fabric. Observational and made up images are embroidered on the the pages. The process draws from sketching, but due to the technique considers time and space, and the opportunity to unravel a mistake and start all over. What is left of sewing? These books are made of cut offs, fabric that remains when the pieces of a garment is cut from it.
I use these sketchbooks especially when traveling or camping and for this reason I look for ways to create lightweight, compact sets to take with me. I reappropriate old tins and cans and plastic bags, and use camping equipment as tools. I am constantly in the process of developing a kit, a set of materials and tools that I carry with me. The use of a variety of shapes and textures draw from open-ended toys and games for children, including the techniques and the aesthetics of Waldorf toys. Hand dyed using natural materials found at home like coffee and tea and frozen berries and beets leftover from dying Easter eggs. I use recycled materials like leftover fabric and packaging material. The fabrics and other materials that the books are made from allow for them to be washed and ironed.
