“Good Morning, we’re in the press!” I wish i could understand Finnish – my first press appearance, and i don’t understand it! (we’ll ask Markku to translate later).
Today is effectively a studio day before my first Performance tomorrow evening, not only my first performance here, but my first performance ever. I need to think carefully about how to conduct myself – what do i wear? do i speak to the visitors? what happens if people look bored? etc etc. We are hoping to set a video camera up to film my drawing, and link it to a live feed on a laptop or tv. The reason for this is to capture the detail of my drawing, which the audience won’t be able to see. Even if we cannot arrange the live feed in time, i will atleast have a video. (this should please Victoria, who has been encouraging me to do a video piece since my Plaza work last August).
We didn’t make it down to the shop unit today, but we sourced some materials and Edwina found me some huge sheets of perspex in her garage – i will attach these to the wall, work on them with paint and polyfiller and then score my line on top of these additional surfaces. Im not sure how to arrange the perspex sheets yet, but they will be sympathetic to the traces in the space.
At 3.30pm the students who are joining us for the week arrived, they are from Glasgow School of Art and will be taking part in Lisa Torell’s Urban Spaces workshop with us. We quickly made our way over to the power station where the Art Week was opening. I was called to the front with the other Artists, and again was oblivious to what was being said. The event was very social, and we spoke to a lot of people, the Art community here is very close.
At 6pm we then went to the Art Museum in Riihimaki where a national exhibition of recycled art was opening, the theme ties into the Art Week well. I have noticed that Finnish exhibition openings have very long speeches, by several people – but apparently this is normal, and the formal thing to do. I spoke to Lloyd, who is Satu’s husband – he teaches English here. We compared the differences between the Finnish and British art systems… in Finland, even quite established Artists have to pay for an exhibition space (1500/2000 euros), Lloyd was surprised to hear that in Britain, Artists get paid a fee to exhibit in a show, and when they are installing, making work or doing workshops, there is a standard fee that they can expect to be paid. Im finding it very interesting to learn about these differences… we have little reason to complain in Britain really.
Tomorrow i need to install my perspex pieces, paint surfaces, and set up the video camera, and ofcourse… perform my drawing! (wow!)
