Back to Capsula

Hardly any posts have been published in this site during the last three years. Capsula people have been busy with intensive projects and the “home capsule” has been abandoned. The summer 2014 will activate the blog, but first I must look back and tell about what Ulla Taipale and Merja Markkula have been doing after Capsula Curated Expedition project was organized in the framework of the Turku2011 European Cultural Capital year.

In 2011 Ulla Taipale was approached by Aalto University in Helsinki/Espoo to set up a laboratory and program dedicated to biological arts, in collaboration with the founders and directors of SymbioticA – Centre of Excellence for Biological Arts Ionat Zurr and Oron Catts.

Biofilia – Base for Biological Arts was officially opened in February 2013 in Otaniemi Campus, Espoo. The same year Biofilia hosted five hands-on workshops interrelating artistic and scientific research and thought. The workshop were led by Oron Catts&Ionat Zurr / Biotech Art Workshop, Leena Valkeapää / The Biology of Snow, Christina Stadlbauer&Lina Kusaite / Melliferopolis Workshop II: Understanding the Essence of Flowers – Exploring Pollen, Andy Gracie / Drosophila titanus- Designer Babies and Marc Dusselier/NanoHacking: Converging Life and Tech at the Nanoscale.

Ulla run two academic courses for Aalto students together with Biofilia lab manager Marika Hellman, in fall 2013 Biofilia: Art and Biosciences Course and in spring 2014 Dinner´s ready course, that culminated with incredible Cook Show ArtMeatFlesh Helsinki at Flavour Studio at Abattoir, Helsinki.

This year Ulla will continue working on the research projects Melliferopolis-Honeybees in Urban Environments with Christina Stadlbauer and Climate Whirl Project with University of Helsinki researchers Eija Juurola and Janne Korhonen, so it will be again a year full of interesting activities.

Merja Markkula decided to bring Kuusisto Manor House in Kaarina in life and is organizing the second Kuusisto Art Manor exhibition with lot of activities during the summer season 2014. The exhibition topic is Water and it is open until the end of August 2014.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rescue Boat Baltic Sea / Pelastusalus Silakka (fin) exhibited in Huuto Gallery

Silakka, the brave catamaran made out of waste, has been invited to be part of the Estomania exhibition in Huuto Gallery in  Helsinki, Finland.

 

Poster of Estomania exhibition.

Poster of Estomania exhibition.

The 2013 Estomania begins with a festival during the opening weekend (Fri 25 Oct – Sun 27 Oct), which includes not only the opening ceremony but also performances poetry, music and circus acts by both Estonian and Finnish artists. ( ) …It is about the joy of doing things together, the relevance of art, romance, friendship, beauty, rebellion and glamour. 

Silakka artists Teemu Takatalo, Tommi Taipale and Juha Mehtäläinen recently published a book about the journey of the raft during 2010-2013, and this book is sold in the exhibition but also in different spots in Helsinki and Tampere.

After the book launch, celebrated in Tampere in 10th September, the artists parked the raft on 12th September on the pier of Helsinki Market Square for a sunny afternoon, where the book was promoted for by-passing citizens of Helsinki.

Sorry, the rest of the text only in finnish:

Syyskuun 12. päivä, 2013 Pelastusalus Silakka rantautui Helsingin keskustaan. Turun kulttuuripääkaupunkivuonna 2011 turkulaisia viranomaisia riemastuttanut alus kellui kesäisen syyspäivän Kolera-altaassa, nyt lastinaan miehistönsä Takatalon, Taipaleen ja Mehtäläisen taiteilema parisataasivuinen kirja, jonka sivuilla katamaraanin kannella purjehtineiden kutsuvieraiden painavat mietteet ja Itämeren suloja ja kauhuja esittävät valokuvat ovat kovien kansien välissä. Jos haluaa nähdä missä tilanteissa keskustelut käytiin, dvd kirjan mukana tekee tapahtumapaikat konkreettisiksi. (https://vimeo.com/74915582)

Eiran ja Kauppatorin välillä jaloittelevat paikalliset ja turistit lehteilivät uteliaina uunituoretta kirjaa, saaden näin syyn jäädä tarkastelemaan aluksen yksityiskohtia ja arvailemaan sen merikelpoisuutta. Väittäisin näkeneeni useamman iäkkäämmän mieshenkilön katseessa kaihoa, välähdyksen toivomuksesta seikkailuun…kaihosta joka on helppo kätkeä miehekkääseen hymäilyyn nuorempien saavutuksen edessä.

“Tuo on kyllä arvokas vene”, kommentoi parikymppinen mies ja jatkaa; “ihanko totta olette sen itse tehneet? Ihan käsityötä.” Hän palaa hetken päästä takaisin ja tuo mukanaan tyttöystävän, jolle hän haluaa ehdottomasti esitellä veneen ihan kannelta käsin. Vilpitön ihailu kuultaa hänen sanoistaan.

“Onko täällä Silakkaa myytävänä?” Kysyy vanha rouva. “Koska ne silakka-markkinat alkaa?”

Samana päivänä Hakaniemen hallissa kertovat että silakka on pyyntikiellossa.

En voi olla heittämättä tähän otetta Richard Thompson Coonin tekstistä How fares the art of organic living?

As members of our mature, gender-sensitive Baltic democracies, as stewards of the Baltic Sea, as citizens of the world, as neighbors, sisters and brothers, we welcome competition that demonstrates our abilities to find satisfaction through the lowest possible consumption of energy and natural resources – that our grandchildren, here and in the Global South, may live full lives.

Love is nothing if not a pro-active mixture of passion and compassion, but passion, thus also compassion, is hopeless if not dangerous in the absence of respect for ecosystems. We love to build in good, local wood, with bricks from glacial mud. We love root tar, pine soap, soft boreal water, mats from old linen bed-covers and tractors that out-last their purchasers.

We love living with the seasons. We love our berries and mushrooms, our own strong apples, plums and pears. And what about the Baltic Sea?

Like fresh bread, the price of fish is going up. Like the parched, degraded grasslands of central Russia, the Baltic Sea is producing less and less edible human food. Why?

What is happening in the mud at the bottom of the sea tells the story of love – the story of who and what is controlling our emotional and material input and output.

Every Baltic citizen can demand, has the right to demand and must demand fresh, organic food from within the Baltic Basin. We only need to demand just that and we will find that we are able, together, to correct the sustainable development equation.

Richard Thompson Coon, Suomenlinna, July 2010 ( read here the entire text)

Pelastusalus Silakka-kirjan voi ostaa suoraan s-postiosoittessa ttaipale@gmail.com

tai kirjakaupoista Helsingissä ja Tampereella:

* Tamperelta Tulenkantajien kirjakauppa, Hämeenpuisto 25, puh: 045-3489688, email: tulenkantajatkauppa@gmail.com

* Helsingissä Mustan kanin kolo, Hämeentie 28 sekä kaikista Rosebud kirjakaupoista, esim. Kiasman kirjakauppa.

* Verkkotilaukset: Palladium Kirjat – www.palladiumkirjat.fi tai suoraan Silakan miehistöltä ttaipale@gmail.com.

Kirjan hinta on 35€ (+tilatessa postikulut 5€)

Vol.at.ilit.y dance performance on-line!

The dance performance Vol.at.ilit.y by coreographer Tomi Paasonen is now to be seen on-line, here the trailer and the full version is to be seen also in Vimeo.

Vol.at.ilit.y is a staged media dance installation that explores water as connective element, transforming itself molecularly from liquid to ice and vapor. Using water in its three different states, both as stage elements, source for musical composition and as a metaphor regarding the human mental bonds towards each other, this piece fuses science, technology, nature and art into kinetic poetry.

Dancers are Kimmo Alakunnas, Rea-Liina Brunou and Linda Sointu and it is  a coproduction by PAA,  Capsula and Barker Teatteri Turku. The piece premiered as part of Turku2011 EU Cultural Capital Programme at Barker Teatteri – Turku, Finland.

Deeply human expedition

Curated Expedition to the Baltic Sea, the last project by Capsula, finished in the end of 2011  within Turku2011, the Finnish Capital of Culture. The artworks created during 2010-11 are presented in Capsula Expeditions -website and little by little the pages will be updated with the rest of the material, documentation and texts. Some collegues and collaborators have contributed the website with texts, here the Deeply human expedition by Raquel Rennó, brazilian researcher and semiotician.

The Expeditions will continue after some time have passed for reflections, rest and new inspiration! Thank you for all that took part as artists, collaborators, funders, audience or/and friends.

Deeply human expedition

Since Plato´s Allegory of the Cave we search for a way to unchain men that have only seen shadows and echoes and take them to the light, where they can se “the real thing”. Beside philosophy, some believe that one of men´s greatest value, creativity, could be a path to take men outside the cave. Itsuo Sakane says: “in such society as ours, in which one tends to be unable to distinguish between reality and artificial reality and ends up chasing daydream, the healing power of art is most effective.”1 Nevertheless, wouldn´t it be a paradox to think that art (not only by the opposition nature vs. culture, but also based on the etymological meaning of art, the manifestation of human activity, as in artificial vs. natural) could help experiencing nature more deeply?

Read the rest of this entry »

Curated Expeditions -site is online!

Fresh material of Curated Expedition to the Baltic Sea can be found now in

http://capsulaexpeditions.com

The contents of the first Expedition to the Total Eclipse are still under construction, but will be updated before the end of the year.

Adam Zaretsky goes organic in Helsinki

After two days Art and Technoscience seminar in Kuvataideakatemia, Herbologies / Foraging Networks -seminar and workshops are about to begin. Adam Zaretsky went shopping to Hakaniemi, to one of the most popular food markets of the town. Tomorrow the workshop entitled: ‘How to Extract DNA from Anything Living in the Laboratory or in your Kitchen: A Compare and Contrast Vegetarian Laboratory and Hobbyist Workshop’ is organised in Kiasma, during the Pixelache Festival.

More photos of the VivoArts -workshop lead by Adam and other activities of Herbologies / Foraging Networks here:

Herbologies / Foraging Networks seminar & workshops 26-28th March, Helsinki

Seminar, discussions, hands-on workshops, harvesting the Windowfarms Finland garden in Kiasma…all about herbs,  plant and food foraging, urban honey collection, herb tincture preparations, dumpster-diving, bio-piracy, DNA -extraction….

Date: 27 March 2010, 13.00-17.00, 17.30-19.00
Location: Kiasma Seminar Room
Organisers: Ulla Taipale (FI/ES), Andrew Gryf Paterson (SCO/FI)
Complete information in: Herbologies/Foraging Networks Programme

Presentations and discussions

// 13.00: Introduction to full Herbologies/Foraging Networks programme

// 13:15: *Cultural Heritage*

Signe Pucena (LV): Herbs and cultural heritage, Baltic expeditions -project

Kultivator (SE): The Wedding between Art and Agriculture

// 14.00: *Urban Space*

Christina Stadlbauer (AT/BE): Honey foraging in urban environments

Dyykkaus Round table featuring Sirpa Kurppa, Nina Nordström and Jessica Suni (all FI)

Discussion in Finnish with projected English text ’side-channel’.

// 15.15: Break for 15 mins

// 15.30: *Information & Sharing*

Andrew Gryf Paterson (SCO/FI): Foraging networks online

Ossi Kakko (FI): Intellectual property/Bio-piratism

Sinikka Piippo (FI): Mielen ja kehon kuntoa kasveilla / Health of mind and body with herbs

++ 17.30: Vivoarts Workshop by Adam Zaretsky follows the Seminar..

Adam Zaretsky (US): Vivoarts Workshop

Renowned bioartist Adam Zaretsky (US) leads a hands-on lab in Pixelache Festival entitled: ‘How to Extract DNA from Anything Living in the Laboratory or in your Kitchen: A Compare and Contrast Vegetarian Laboratory and Hobbyist Workshop’. It will include a bio-political discussion on the difference between whole plant preparations and purified, ‘isolated’ extracts, with a risk assessment of intentional release ‘utilisation’ of Hybrid DNA.

The workshop will take place in Kiasma Seminar room on Saturday 27th March, from 1730-1900, and is free of charge. Held in English language, it has a limited number of spaces for involved persons (Maximum 25 participants), although another 15 are welcome to watch the proceedings.

Please register for involvement before 25.3. Look here for more information.

Herbologies Workshops in Botanic Gardens


*

Date: 28th March, 2010, 12-17
Location: Kaisaniemi Botanic Gardens, Helsinki.
Participants: Max. 16 persons in Herbal Tintures workshop. Please register to reserve a place.

Two interactive workshops, ‘Herbal Tinctures’ and ‘Fermentation Sermon’, teach artistic and ‘hands-on’/practical skills, and give DIY -tools to prepare and enjoy wild vegetables and local herbs following traditional and contemporary procedures.

The workshops start at 12.00 by Kiasma takaikkuna, where the participants will harvest the plants growing in Windowfarms Finland installation together with Signe Pucena and Ossi Kakko. From Kiasma, we all walk together to Botanical Garden in Kaisaniemi where the workshops take place.

These workshops are free of charge, but have a limited number of spaces (Max. 16 participants in Herbal Tinctures workshop).

Please register your interest to participate, and reserve a place by email
Before March 25th to: herbologies [-at-] pixelache.ac
(please write which workshop you are applying to)

[*] Photo credits above: Herb collection – Signe Pucena, Dyykkaus table – cc Sigardus, Bee Observatory – cc Annemie Maes, Forest foraging – Ossi Kakko, Kultivator sign – cc Andrew Gryf Paterson

Curated Expedition to the Baltic Sea 2010-2011

Open Call for projects  for finnish and estonian artists and creators and open for proposals for cross-disciplinary art expeditions to the Baltic Sea finished just before Christmas. We received 70 proposals, from which 5 were from estonian and 65 from finnish artists/groups of artists.

In the beginning of February the jury (director of the Turku University Research Institute of Archipelago Sea, prof. FT Ilppo Vuorinen, visual artist Terike Haapoja, artist-curator Juha Huuskonen and curator-producer Ulla Taipale) gathered together to choose the projects to be realised.

The selection of projects and artists  is:

**Kaarnavene/ Bark Boat by Antti Laitinen

**Pelastusalus Silakka / Rescue Boat Baltic Herring crew: Teemu Takatalo, Tommi Taipale, Ossi Kakko, Riku Ritvanen

**Green Matters by Mia Mäkelä

**Sonic Seascape Terrace by Hanna Haaslahti & Marianne Decoster-Taivalkoski

**Vol.at.ilit.y by  Tomi Paasonen & Tiago Da Cruz

More information about the projects will be available very soon!

Curated Expedition to the Baltic Sea project is realised in collaboration with Finnish Bioart Society and is part of European capital for culture Turku2011  -programme.

Culture in COP15 / Ed Morris, GOOD

A “GOOD” mini-series by Ed Morris on the cultural happenings surrounding COP15:

“I wonder what it would have been like had the museums employed the same resources to do something more radical, such as give the entire space over to one or two artists capable of meaningful transformation, or have Erroll Morris put together a single series of messages from the art world to the people deciding our fate in the Bella Center, or simply shut off all the lights and let people cogitate that: “No more culture, only nature, from now on people.”

Or maybe this just isn’t the right time for the museums. The curators and framers were just doing their job. It’s a big conference, they have to do a big show. But, of course, that was precisely the problem. Meanwhile, I am noticing more and more of these little stickers and messages indicating that inaction might really, truly have its consequences.”

Click for the articles

Zoolar Eclipse -exhibition in EspaiDos, Terrassa, Spain

zoolareclipse