Pipoca (Paola De Ramos) was born in Curitiba, Brazil in 1986. Pipoca creates performance and installation to stimulate body sensation and perception, challenging peoples’ notion of their private and public psychological space. Most of her work is charged with intense colours, complex combinations of different materials and with a pitch of sour humour.
Parsa Kamehkhosh is a Helsinki based designer, visual and performance artist, born in Tehran in 1985. Through his practice, he explores the notion of aesthetic aura that appears from the proximity, juxtaposition and joints of materials and shapes.
Niko Skorpio is a transdisciplinary artist, researcher and educator based in Finland. Through his works Niko Skorpio explores various forgotten, abandoned, obscure and secluded areas in culture, nature and the psyche. Niko Skorpio holds an MA in Visual Culture and Contemporary Art from Aalto University, Helsinki.
My name is Melanie Popp and I am an art teacher currently caring for my two children full time. Though I am out of the traditional classroom setting for now, you can’t take the art teacher out of me! I’ve been creating opportunities for process based art play for my children since before they could wield paintbrushes.
The Finding of Hän1 is an original puppet theater production that explores the inherent duality of human nature and imagines the lifespan of an ancient object. Themes and characters are drawn from coastal cultures and stories from around the world.
Script: Paola de Ramos, M. Hasnan Habib, Parsa Kamehkhosh, Niko Skorpio, Melanie Popp
Puppets: Paola de Ramos, M. Hasnan Habib, Parsa Kamehkhosh, Niko Skorpio, Melanie Popp
Stage: Paola de Ramos, M. Hasnan Habib and Parsa Kamehkhosh.
Lighting: Paola de Ramos, M. Hasnan Habib
Narrator: Melanie Popp
Sound: Maria Mar, Elias Kismet Poutanen
Camera: Jakub Bobrowski
Video Editing: Uzair Amjad
Melanie Popp, The Finding of Hän, 2020, relief print on rice paper
Melanie Popp, The Finding of Hän, 2020, relief print on rice paper
In this project, 100 letters were sent to the friends, relatives and acquaintances of the organizing team. The letter described how much we missed their hugs, which had been withheld for a year due to COVID. The addressees were asked to send us an item of clothing that was old, worn out, and had seen its last days in their closet.
READAn Equivalence of Our Distance
Perhaps what makes me who I am is not only the things I have now but also the things I have lost or I long for.
READPlaces
I personally don’t like to be touched so I rarely get my hair done. I wanted to capture that moment of how it feels for me in the first hour of braiding since I can’t quite put it into words. There’s anxiety but also excitement. A feeling of foreignness but also of belonging, warmth and kinship. It’s ordinary and also a special occasion.
READUntitled
A specimen-style diagram on flower assemblage in preparation for ‘rooting’ delves into the topics of how to re-assemble oneself to set roots somewhere. Do we change ourselves and re-assemble our features to be allowed to remain in the garden, or do we tend a small corner in a garden of our own? Often ‘belonging’ is a concept that exists within change. We can belong to many contradictory concepts, not necessarily following a specific blueprint.
READAssembly Plant, 2022
