“Artist-run spaces fit all kinds of models. They are testing grounds and springboards to the commercial art world, intimate gatherings in apartments, and places for reading groups and shared meals. They are little pockets of activity that serve particular audiences at particular times, filling gaps and holes for all that the art-world fails to provide. Sometimes they are meant to be temporary, and other times they can grow to become professionalized institutions that a later generation of artists define themselves against.”
InCUBATE. Making-do: a pragmatist approach, Artist-run Chicago Digest, Copyright threewalls/Green Lantern press, Chicago, IL: forthcoming October 2009
Few years ago we read the text ‘The artist-run space of the future’ (2012), and since then it has inspired us, Third Space, as a collective. Intimacy & Collaboration is a reading and discussion session, based on the aforementioned text, and in relation to artist-run initiatives and collaboration-based practices. The essence of this conversation oscillates around the artist-run spaces, collaborative practices and possibilities. In the conversation, the members of Third Space collective, Sepideh Rahaa and Ana Gutieszca, will speak around their own collective initiative, this text and other practices within the field of arts in Finland and elsewhere. The invited guests Ceyda Berk-Söderblom and Moe Mustafa, will join to discuss the importance of collective work through their practice.
The event will be accessible via Zoom for everyone with registration, please email eliisa.suvanto@publics.fi to receive the link. The participants are asked to fill a short questionnaire with few questions for feedback to PUBLICS.
The event will conclude with a Sound Room performance by Atheer Sooth aka Moe Mustafa.
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Intimacy & Collaboration: Artist-run initiatives and collaboration-based practices is supported and co-organised together with PUBLICS. Together with Third Space we want to ask: What are we doing and what could we be doing differently? The event is part of Open Up cultural project and Parahosting Laboratory where PUBLICS hosts and supports small-scale independent non-profit initiatives and freelance cultural workers.
Open Up is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme and through its collaborative activities, the project aims to establish and support sustainable art practises through the network, and provide participants with training and knowledge based activities and actions, including laboratories, workshops, festivals, exhibitions and publications.
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Third Space is a cross border transcultural collective that seeks to erase the invisible lines that separate us. Our collective identity and goals are shaped by diverse geopolitical views and backgrounds. Our aim is to observe from both ‘the outside in’ and ‘the inside out’ in order to create new ways of understanding what marginal and central are in Finnish society, and how to bridge them through dialogue. Third Space emerged as a response to the lack of inclusivity and diversity in the Finnish art scene. Inclusivity is not a fixed concept but a changing one. Our role is to identify its different forms and to respond to them.
Ceyda Berk-Söderblom, a Turkish born independent art manager, curator, festival programmer and entrepreneur specialising in change management, is the Founder and Artistic Director MiklagardArts, a facilitator and connector for promoting transnational collaborations between Finland and the dynamic art scenes worldwide. With more than 20 years of experience in the field of arts, she has previously served as the festival coordinator and main programmer at the International Izmir Festival (a board member of European Festivals Association), as well as programmer at the Izmir European Jazz Festival (a member of European Jazz Network) for 14 years before. She is interested in forms of artistic intervention and activism. She has initiated projects with the established institutions of Finland and has also curated projects abroad. One of her projects, a collaboration with the Finnish National Museum, Studio Aleppo [Helsinki], has been awarded the “Production of the Year-2017” by Taku ry–The Finnish Art and Cultural Professionals Trade Union. Her current non-profit work (Globe Art Point 2017- present) has centred on public advocacy focusing on policies, practices, norms, and institutions. In 2019, by Demos Helsinki, she was invited as a founding member of UNTITLED, a social imagination and experimentation process to bring together pioneering thinkers and doers to reimagine society. Ceyda grew up in a cosmopolitan family and has always been fascinated by complex and fluid social identities. She studied journalism, communication, critical thinking, business administration, art management and leadership in arts organisations. Her professional career is driven by curiosity and boldness to challenge the norms. Having worked closely with world-known institutions, orchestras, artists, and ensembles gave her a broad range of organisational and curatorial skills. Ceyda holds a “Bene Merito” honorary distinction from the Ministry of International Affairs of the Republic of Poland in recognition of her merits in promoting the Polish artistic scene abroad.
Mohammed Moe Mustafa is a Helsinki-based visual artist and theatre-maker. He was born in Kuwait and brought up in Amman-Jordan. Alongside art and theatre, he has been honing his skills in sound design for the past several years. He performed live music under the name; Khadija and Kitsch-ensemble (a.k.a) Atheer Soot. Both projects carry an experimental aesthetic, yet each project has a distinguished style. Khadija project came out in 2018 – 2019; the sound inspiration was brutal architecture and industrial techno. Khadija’s live performances were considered very political and radical. However, after releasing an album and performed few times in Berlin and Helsinki, Moe Mustafa decided to draw full attention to Atheer Soot. Atheer Soot, an Arabic phrase, means a sound that resonates in the void. The project focuses on soundscape, ambient, and drone music. In this project, Moe goes back in time to explore the past, his childhood. He revisits these memories to create a nostalgic and dreamy sound. Moe sees the process of creating sound or sculpting sound as a therapy, where you open up to your devices and instruments and let your mind and intuition wander around.