Fall 2005

Art Workers in Residence at NIFCA in Helsinki

NIFCA, Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art is honored to host in residence at Suomenlinna in Helsinki:

Emma Bugden, Wellington, NZ (September)
Cecilia Canziani, Rome IT (19 September-19 October)
Power Ekroth, Stockholm, SE (October-7 November)
Louise Garrett, London, UK/NZ (19 September-9 October)
Tatiana Goloviznina, St. Petersburg, RU (November)
Hsieh, Ming-Ta, Taipei, TW (August-October)
Robert Johansson, Oslo, NO (September-October)
Unnar Örn Jonasson Audarsson, Reykjavik, IS (August-October)
Stanislav Menzulsky, St. Petersburg, RU (November)
Leonard Qylafi, Korca, AL (October)
Johan Tirén, Hägersten, SE (September-October)
Veronica Wiman, Stockholm, SE (October-7 November)


Emma Bugden (Wellington, NZ)
September at NIFCA through the Research Residency program.

Emma Bugden is a New Zealand curator currently based at the City Gallery Wellington (www.city-gallery.org.nz). Recent projects include curating the 2004 biennial survey exhibition Prospect 2004: New Art New Zealand, showcasing 42 artists’ projects across 4 exhibition venues (www.telecomprospect.org.nz). She comes from a background of working with artist run initiatives, and was a former director of the contemporary project space The Physics Room (www.physicsroom.org.nz) and co-founder of Dunedin artist run space the Honeymoon Suite (http://www.warrenolds.com/honeymoonsuite). Emma is in Helsinki to undertake research for two exhibitions she is developing: 'Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?' an international exhibition exploring fairytales and mythology, and a smaller exhibition of emerging Finnish artists, as well as researching an article for Natural Selection Magazine (www.naturalselection.org.nz).

Studio Emanuel, Suomenlinna B 44 G, 00190 Helsinki, tel. (+358 9) 668 433.


Cecilia Canziani (Rome, IT)
19 September-19 October at NIFCA through the Research Residency program.
Louise Garrett (London, UK/NZ)
19 September-9 October at NIFCA through the Research Residency program.

Cecilia Canziani and Louise Garrett are freelance researchers, writers and curators, currently working together on several projects as an independent curatorial team. Their practice focuses on the analysis and deconstruction of the contexts, systems, categories and rituals that determine the production and reception of art. They work with forms of critical practice that serve to interrogate cultural spaces and are interested in the legacy of conceptual and situational art practice and institutional critique in contemporary art and curating. During their residency at NIFCA they are conducting research on the Finnish/Nordic contemporary art scene in order to feed into current projects and to facilitate potential collaborations with Nordic artists and institutions.

The first of Canziani and Garrett’s two projects is Walkshop (working title), a three-day interdisciplinary symposium due to take place in spring 2006, in which movement through the city and conversation will be utilised as forms to frame the event. Delegates from across Europe will be invited to Rome to take part in a series of dialogues and activities centred around the local urban territory and its cultural networks. The structure experiments with different forms of public space based on the social architectures of everyday rituals and hospitality. The project is supported by ECF.

Canziani and Garrett are also working on research and development towards the production of an exhibition space in form of a magazine. Each issue will be internationally distributed and host a show that will therefore be widely and simultaneously accessible, thus trespassing the geographical logic that helps maintain cultural hierarchies. For their research project Analogue, they are producing an analogue version of the magazine that will be posted consecutively to fifty artists from different parts of the world. The artists will make cumulative contributions to build up a background archive as well as a conceptual and collaborative framework for the proposed new periodical magazine.

Other recent curatorial projects include Transmission. A Belgrade Studiorum (Museum of Contemporary Art and Museum of Education, Belgrade, 2005) and All Tomorrow´s Parties (The Yugoslav Biennale of Young Artists, Vrsac 2004) by Cecilia Canziani; Space Protocol (Rael Artel Gallery, Pärnu, Estonia, 2005) and infiltrate (The Substation, Singapore, 2004) by Louise Garrett.

Cecilia Canzian: Guest room Sergei, Suomenlinna B 44 G, 00190 Helsinki, tel. (+358 9) 686 43 231
Louise Garret: Guest Room Signe, Suomenlinna B 44 H, 00190 Helsinki, tel. (+358 9) 686 43 232


Power Ekroth and Veronica Wiman (Stockholm, SE)
October-7 November at NIFCA through the Research Residency program

Power Ekroth is an independent curator and writer as well as an editor of the magazine SITE. She is a contributor to Artforum.com, Contemporary, Flash Art and frieze. She is one of the curators of the touring exhibition E-Flux Video Rental presently on display at Portikus, Frankfurt aM. She was one of the collaborating curators for the Expanded Painting section of this years Prague Biennial 2, and was the curator of the Scandinavian pavilion of the biennial of Artist's Book Biennial in the Library of Alexandria in 2004.

Veronica Wiman is an independent curator and writer. Since some years she has curated independently internationally. Her general interest lies in the interdisciplinary in art and socially integrated projects, exploring relational expressions and public space. This year she was a curator in residency at ISCP, New York and among other projects now involved in Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Craft in Dialgue/IASPIS, European Patent Office, "Pure Consciousness" – On Kawara.

They are in residency at NIFCA in Suomenlinna for their curatorial collaboration in developing an international nomadic site of exposition, with the support from The Foundation for the Culture of the Future (SE). Among other things, the project is surfacing questions about the format of the exhibition, the process of the production, and commercial values. The project will involve other curators and artists and is planned to continue for a longer period of time.

Power Ekroth: Guest Room Nina, Suomenlinnna B 44 G, 00190 Helsinki
tel. (+358 9) 686 43 233
Veronica Wiman: Studio Flat B 28, Suomenlinna B 28, 00190 Helsinki
E-mail: mail ( ) veronicawiman.net
tel. (+358 9) 686 43 228


Hsieh, Ming-Ta (Taipei, TW)
August-October artist-in-residence at NIFCA through an exchange with Taipei Artist Village, TW

Hsieh, Ming-Ta’s works are concerned with human possibility, as well as the exploration of consciousness. The common consciousness in different cultures has been a focus of his interests. His works have included video, behavior art, installation. This time at NIFCA he plans to explore Nordic culture and the Nordic environment, and expects to create some new experiences in works.

Studio Elias, Suomenlinna B 44 F, 00190 Helsinki, tel. (+358 9) 668 411


Robert Johansson (Oslo, NO)
September-October artist-in-residence at NIFCA through the Nordic AiR program

Robert Johansson has worked together with Vanna Bowles for the past three years with performance and installations containing sculpture, drawing, video, photo and a lot of interactivity. Other people contribute and get involved as spectators and/or participants in their performances, which show absurd combinations and alterations of social, cultural and sporting phenomena and contexts. Their works explore the body as an arena for social practice and its readings as shell, surface, tool, language, myth and stage. During the residency Robert Johansson will try to get a grasp of the art scene in Helsinki and see whatever that might lead to. He will also start up a new project with the working title Durata Caput Mortuum, dealing with games, physicality and ephemerality.

Studio Augustin, Suomenlinna B 44 E, 00190 Helsinki, tel. (+358 9) 668 255


Unnar Örn Jonasson Audarsson (Reykjavik, IS)
August-October artist-in-residence at NIFCA through the Nordic AiR program

Unnar Örn Jónasson is an artist based in Reykjavik, Iceland and Atlanta, USA. His works always refers in different directions and often require a long and sometimes slow process involving elements of extended investigation and research, like collecting, tracing or mapping. During the residency at Suomelinna, he will realize a textile project that involves an ongoing interest on domestic houseplants. He also will be working on a book that is linking ideas of conflicts within democracy related to economy and power. Jónasson has been involved in many kinds of creative activity and includes gallery activities, writing and collaboration as important to his artistic practice.

Studio Augustin, Suomenlinna B 44 E, 00190 Helsinki, tel. (+358 9) 668 355

Leonard Qylafi (Korca, AL)
October artist-in-residence at NIFCA through the West Balkan AiR program

Leonard Qylafi’s works have in general been in different media, guided by the context. His recent works are focused on a certain kind of personal motivation, which will be expressed through painting. He will materialize his experience of living and his motifs of Albanian reality in a hybrid image: a kind of a conflict; natural-artificial, machine-human, system-personality, culture-feelings, order-freedom. He will try to offer to the spectator his self-conflicts in a world of changes and rules, trying to make them understand their own conflicts.

Studio Emanuel, Suomenlinna B 44 G, 00190 Helsinki, tel. (+358 9) 668 433.


Johan Tirén (Hägersten, SE)
September-October artist-in-residence at NIFCA through the Nordic AiR program

Lately Johan Tirén has been dealing with issues connected to different aspects of historiography. What is history? How is a personal story written into a larger historical context? What is the place of a more subjective observer in relation to a more general historical account? He has often in these projects used the interview both as a research method and sometimes in the presentation of the work. Thus he has been able to, from a subjective point of view, discuss and raise questions about social structures, taking his own position as a starting point. During his residency at NIFCA, Johan Tirén is working with a new video project based on found archive material. www.johantiren.se

Studio Carl August, Suomenlinna B 44 F, 00190 Helsinki, tel. (+358 9) 668 356


For further information please contact project coordinator Aura Seikkula at NIFCA.