IN/OUT STUDIO

Just come back from a wonderful eight day holiday in Finland having mostly pleasure and doing a little bit of work. Mr Smith and myself enjoyed the great architecture of Helsinki and the wilderness of ‘the island’ that consisted of lots of rocks and trees surrounded by the stillness of the sea. Sometimes you just need to be reminded of what is really necessary such as eating, sleeping, walking and keeping warm. Although even in the wilderness I still want to make work. I have had this idea for a while of an image of myself in the pose of a plane that has failed to take off. My friend Anna thought it looked more bird like and in some of the photographs I appear to have been washed up on the rocks. We stayed with my friend Anna Puhakka who is an artist, writer and founder/editor-in-chief of a publication called Hesa Inprint (http://www.hesainprint.com/issues). We visited the gallery that she works in called Gallery Jangva a commercial exhibition space in Helsinki (http://www.jangva.fi/exhibitions.html). I needed to do a short rece of the space and sign contracts for The Evente, which I will perform in August as part of an event at the gallery. On the night there will be an exhibition of an artists work, myself performing The Evente, another performance artist and a band. I needed to check were best to place the stand and how to attach the balloons to the ceiling. I really like the idea of promoting the performance during the day on the streets by walking around the city in costume or having the stand situated in a busy part of town. This event will be part of Helsinki’s night of the arts, which I am really excited to be taking part in. Anna invited me to perform at the event and we also plan to go to her summerhouse in the forest a week before to make some work together. We have been friends since uni and worked together as part of the artist collective BaseNorth. We both make live art although I am seeing the curator starting to emerge in Anna she is one to look out for in the future.