Interviews
I try to balance my practice between what I think is important to discuss politically and what feels enjoyable for me in life. The topics I end up making films about are those that combine these two things. I think I’m good at describing something by bringing together images, sounds, and words.
READ“Most of the Time, It’s Just a Wonderful Thing”: Conversation With August Joensalo
Orlan Ohtonen talks to August Joensalo about how gender is represented in an image and how that could be changed.
House of Fvck is a Drag collective born in 2020 during the Helsinki Pride Week. It was a project for Nuorten Pride to teach young people under 18 to do Drag with makeup, costume and performance; the tutors were Chris Oh! and Betty Fvck.
READNo Shade: Betty Fvck & the House of Betty Fvck
House of Fvck members in a “no shade” interview with Betty Fvck.
I am interested in language. I question language. I often feel that naming things too clearly, opening them up as if they were on an operating table, does not speak about the things I am trying to reach, but puts them in certain categories, forced within a certain structure that is not my language. It feels like a violent act.
READCountering Cohesive Narratives: Conversation with Azar Saiyar
Marja Viitahuhta interviews Azar Saiyar on the occasion of her exhibition ‘My Home and Roses’.
Even though we met for the first time, Rita was keen on opening up to talk about a variety of subjects. We talked about many things, stopping longer on the role of Renaissance in Rita’s current art practice, her PhD on artists-in-residence, the latest exhibition in Myymälä 2 and the invisibility of foreign artists in Finland.
READA fragment of a landscape, an iceberg, or something else entirely: Conversation with Rita Vargas
On the eve of the day view of Deep Time Trans (DTT), the latest project by the DTT working group, I sat with two members of this collective of artists to discuss queer ecology, queer futures, and transformation.
READDeep Time Trans, a Lookinglass Into Prehistoric Queer Ecology: Conversation With Even Minn and Teo Ala-Ruona
I’m so tired of seeing depressing African films about slavery and civil wars; about suffering. And though I wanted to address an issue like the health crisis in Africa, I wanted to tell it through love.
READKhadar Ahmed: The King of "No"
Sharron L. Todd in conversation with Khadar Ahmed on deciding his own future, despite the societal odds stacked against him.
The way I learned to connect with Kaffeochbulla was mainly through art and usually in a very straightforward manner. They would hand me zines, prints, stickers, earrings or clothes upon meeting, and always ask what I’ve been doing or experimenting with. It has always felt vulnerable in a nice way and that these exchanges of art, thoughts and treasures weave little webs of support and excitement for one another.
READMagic, Intergenerational Trauma & Snail Shells: Conversation With KaffeochBulla
On creating art in a culture where vulnerability is discouraged, breaking intergenerational curses, and the importance of community.
It’s easy to remember when I met Eleni Tsitsirikou. It was on the day of my arrival from Berlin to Helsinki for my curatorial residency at HIAP. On Wednesday, 1 November 2017, I felt nervous looking for the entrance of Kaapeli, the Cable Factory. But there was Eleni waiting for me with a welcoming smile. Since then, throughout the residency, she was the person that I could turn to, making me feel at home. If there is a heart to an organisation, it would be Eleni for HIAP.
READMoment of Welcoming: Conversation With Eleni Tsitsirikou
Has there been a change in how art residencies are perceived? A conversation with HIAP’s residency manager.
Ubuntu Film Club (Alice Mutoni, Rewina Teklai, Fiona Musanga) in conversation with Good Hair Day (Saida Mäki-Penttilä, Paloma Sandberg, Akunna Onwen) about why community-based organisations are needed?
READWhy Are Community-Based Organisations Needed?
Ubuntu Film Club in conversation with Good Hair Day.
I still remember the first time I saw Kihwa-Endale artwork in her studio. She was painting on transparent surfaces and mirrors. The paintings were getting alive, reflecting the light, the space around it and showing you your own reflection. Kihwa-Endale explained that the artworks were meant to portray multiple realities coexisting and play with the viewer.
READContinuance between Art, Art-Space and Audience: conversation with Kihwa-Endale
This interview is a transcription from a recorded verbal dialogue that happened on a balcony while five other friends were eating, listening to music and dancing in the other room. In this transcription we wished to communicate the feeling of thinking through talking as it happens in real dialogues, holding a glass of red wine, sensing on our faces the fragrant sting of summer wind, on a late evening.
READCurating from the perspective of an artist: conversation with Anna Ruth
Anna Ruth tells how curating from the perspective of an artist creates structures of care and reciprocity.
Craftsmanship that leaves a polished finishing and evocative historical notions hidden underneath the fine details. Man Yau’s work with ceramic installations arrests the viewer, while encouraging to revisit and contemplate the uncanny contemporaneity that the artworks embody. In this interview, we discuss artistic processes, practices and labour as well as the intertwining of the personal and the thematic in Yau’s two exhibitions from the spring 2021: M.Y. Chinoiserie at Kuvan Kevät, Exhibition Laboratory, and Dried flowers last forever at Boy Konsthall.
READOn “The Feeling of Being on Display and Under Pressure” — a Conversation With Man Yau
On artistic processes, practices and labour as well as the intertwining of the personal and the thematic in Man Yau’s work.