Spring 2006

ART WORKERS in RESIDENCE at NIFCA in HELSINKI


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


* Factory of Found Clothes – Natalia Pershina-Yakimanskaya (Gluklya) and Olga Egorova (Tsaplya),
St. Petersburg, Russia (April-May)
* Elin Høyland, Oslo, Norway (February–May)
* Maja Ljungberg, Oslo, Norway (April-16 May)
* Leonard Qylafi, Korca, Albania (May)



Factory of Found Clothes – Gluklia, Natalia Pershina and Tsaplya, Olga Egorova (St. Petersburg, Ru)
Artist-in-residence at NIFCA through an exchange with NCCA, St. Petersburg Brach of National Centre for Contemporary Art, St. Petersburg, Russia (April-May)

FFC works in combining installation ,performance, enviromental works, situationist action, video ,social researchs, direct contact.

Manifesto of Factory of Found Clothes
The place of the artist is on the side of the weak. Weakness makes a person human, and it is by overcoming weakness that heroes are born. We do not extol weakness, but rather appeal to kindheartedness and humanity. The time has come to return compassion to art! Compassion is an understanding of the weakness of others and a joint victory over that weakness. You cannot call it sentimentality.

It is Freedom standing on the barricade with naked breast, defending the child in each of us! You say that art is only for the very smart, that it’s an intellectual game? That there is no place left for true impact, that strong emotions belong exclusively to Hollywood? It’s not true! Because in that case, art would be meaningless, cold, incapable of extending a helping hand. Art is not an abstract game but an adventure; not cold rationalism, but live emotion. The artist is not a mentor or tutor, but a friend; not a genius, but an accomplice. Rather than enacting didactic social projects, we must help people to stop fearing themselves, help them to accept themselves and grow better. Society is made up of people. Only by helping these people follow the path of self transformation, do we change society. There is no other way.

Studio Carl August, tel. (+358 9) 668 356
E-mail to Gluklia: fno()mail.ru
E-mail to Tsaplya: tsaplya()inbox.ru


Elin Høyland (Oslo, NO)
Nordic Resort residency through collaboration with Nordscen, Nordic Centre for the Performing Arts (February–mid-May)

Performance and new realism(s)
I can make you sing (scream silent dream) – is a working title for my Nordic Resort performance/research project. My starting point lies in the idea of combining a performative mode of audience-confrontational monologue with more theatrical/illusionary elements, aesthetically leaning towards an idea of the baroque (meets postrealism). The vehicle for this process is a persona-figure that I develop through text/drawing/sound/video work, first stage, then gradually moving her out in live space, giving performances of varying production scales/spaces. The general backdrop for this project is a wish to explore the various modes of communication made possible through live (i.e corporeal co-presence w/audience) performance, and how this may intertwine with the use and criticism of new media, within the wide thematic frame of human nature and communication-technologies. (In search of the Western World (W)ind(ow)ividual)

Guest Room Sergei, tel. (+358 9) 686 43 231
elinhoyland()yahoo.no


Maja Ljungberg (Oslo, NO)
Artist-in-residence at NIFCA through the Nordic AiR program (April–16 May)

Maja Ljungberg has a background in photography. Currently she is working on a project - "Celestial bodies" ("Himlakropp"). This is a collection of collages and sculptures, combining photography and techniques traditionally used for textiles, for instance sewing, weaving, patterns and crochet. The subject for investigation is also very traditional, "the nude", or parts of bodies if you want. During Ljungberg’s stay in Helsinki, she will meet with her first "Celestial body" model and hopefully it will result in a new collage of black and white photos and stitching, similar to the first one made in 2003. She will also try to include digital photography and printing, as a new element in the project.

Studio Johan Tobias, tel. (+358 9) 668 255
maja.ljungberg()gmail.com


Leonard Qylafi (Korca, AL)
Artist-in-residence at NIFCA through West Balkan AiR (May)

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 Elias, tel. (+358 9) 668 411
nake4leo()yahoo.com


Address for all the studios and guest rooms: Suomenlinna B 44, 00190 Helsinki, Finland


For further information please contact the art workers directly or project coordinator Mitro Kaurinkoski at NIFCA.