Fair Sculpture - an intergenerational and multidisciplinary artistic community project
Fair Sculpture encourages and helps empower youth, with a focus on youths who are less exposed to different kinds of art and culture. Fair Sculpture consists of
two branches, in which participation is free for participants. One branch is a weekly afternoon school for kids and youngsters in the facilities of the Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki where they work with artists. The second is a residency branch, where artists are invited to hold an art residency in a school in rural areas of Finland.
National
Finland
Helsinki Capitol area and Joutsa a small municipality in the province of Western Finland.
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki Type of organisation: University or another research institution First name of representative: Frank Last name of representative: Brümmel Gender: Male Nationality: Germany Function: Lecturer in Sculpture, Doctoral candidate Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Sörnäinen rantatie 19 Town: Helsinkio Postal code: 00530 Country: Finland Direct Tel:+358 40 860 9514 E-mail:frank.brummel@uniarts.fi Website:https://www.uniarts.fi/en/projects/fair-sculpture/
Description:
Fair Sculpture is an intergenerational and multidisciplinary artistic community project consisting of two branches, in which participation is free for participants. One branch is a weekly afternoon school for youth in the facilities of the Academy of Fine Arts and the Theatre Academy in Helsinki (Sörnäinen Campus). The second is a residency branch, where artists are invited to hold an art residency in a school outside of Helsinki, outside the Capitol area. Work there not as teachers but as artists. The project aims to empower kids and youngsters from different backgrounds. The focus is to give exposure to school children who do not normally have the opportunity to meet professional artists and encounter different kinds of cultural events as well as give the participating artists opportunity to create in a vivid learning environment.
Mission:
Fair Sculpture encourages and helps empower youth, with a focus on youths who are less
exposed to different kinds of art and culture.
Vision:
Our aim is to nurture and create self-expression in students aged 8-17 years old. We hope to have
a future generation in Finland for whom art and culture is part of their daily life. And is aware of
their choices and take them into their own hands.
We therefor simply open doors of already existing buildings, like our University building or schools and let people in, then work differently in these already existing structures. Fair Sculpture is not a preparatory art-school or any similar to this. We want the youth to make these spaces their own. We want them to get in contact with artistic thinking and expression, so they get encouraged and feel empowered to shape their and our future. Fair Sculpture is not anyhow part of the official curriculum of the academy /university, but is based on the engagement of artists teaching and studying at the University of the Arts, Helsinki, though has support of the University and got pilot seed funding.
Community centred
Intergenerational
Artistic
Multidisciplinary
Shaping future
This initiative looked at the possibility on how to use already existing structures differently, newly. Here institutional structures as also hard structures like buildings. In a way as architects in the last years shaped the phrase Grey Energy (already invisibly inherent energy in materials) but Fair Sculpture methodologically expanded this term also to non-material structures, like the institutional structure as such. But also to the hard structure, as we looked into possibilities to find ways and use the university buildings differently at certain moments for other communities. The spaces are already heated, have light, there are tables, machines, all normally clearly made for a certain purpose. By simply stepping back and looking differently to the already given structures, we were able to identify these other possibilities. Why shouldn't these these huge university buildings not be used by different communities for different purposes? With a bit of planning and vision we still see high potential to widen this point of view and implement even more different players. The same for the residency in a primary schools, first in the town of Joutsa. Normally not meant for any kind of artists´ practice we now like to find out, what such a different usage of space and structures does to all the people involved, from regular teachers there, the artists, the children, their parents the community in a small rural place.
The whole project is based on artistic thinking and working. And is in this respect not anyhow following the idea of artists making nice things with children. Quite the contrary it is about free artistic thinking and how to implement that in a different way to society. The children and kids involved do not need to follow a certain program to produce something. The whole project can be compared to the idea of modeling. Like modeling a sculpture out of fresh clay, so modeling works as a metaphor. So we believe, that here the elements in the project are shapable similar to clay-pieces . All participants are therefor invited and encouraged to shape and model their environment with the help of artistic thinking. The youngsters and children as also all other people involved get therefor the possibility to engage artistically with the world. So the outcome is therefor naturally not to necessarily produce something but let artistic thinking in their lives and maybe even guide for a better future and a better common living together.
So far the seed funding, Talent-Boost funding, made it possible, that participation for participants in Fair Sculpture is free. The pilot projects made it possible to pay salaries, metro tickets for the children, working materials like metal, clay, paint as also food and drinks - the kids were always hungry, the moment they came into the University's facilities. For the residency part, participating artists are paid to work as artists in a primary school, not as teachers with a monthly salary. This all made it possible to include a wide range of people from different backgrounds who normally wouldn't have a possibility to do so. As also it brought and brings together people from very different backgrounds. One highlight was the moment when participating kids invited their parents, family members and friends to come all to the University. They showed them everything they had done there, did performances and happily and self-confident guided their guests through all the facilities of the Theatre Academy and the Academy office Arts in which they had worked for weeks. This moment to see, how the kids had taken the place, the university campus, already as theirs, was just magnificent.
We see in the Fair Sculpture project with its aesthetics a high quality of experiences for people and a very strong societal impact. The possibility to be engaged with artistic thinking is a great experience for youth. And we want to change, break the segregating, the inside/outside dynamics, turn down walls, open institutions, make them more and differently accessible. We want to give work for artists and other experts to be able to implement their vision of art in society via a different shared platform like Fair Sculpture, that is not a commercial one. At the same time we ensured that all regulations being asked for people working with children in Finland are in place. We hope to have a future generation in Finland for whom art and culture is part of their daily life. And is aware of their choices and take them into their own hands. A world orientated generation, keeping democratic values through artistic thinking implementations. We were also very happy to see especially parents from a diverse backround of children to come into the University and see the buildings, even participated themselves, and see their own children working there.
The different stakholders involved in this pilot are the Academy Fine Arts, and the Theatre Academy, both at the University of the Arts Helsinki. Staff members of these Academies. As also the primary school of Joutsa, a small municipality in Finland, located in the province of Western Finland, part of the Central Finland region. As also KAS! Kontula Art School (Kontula is area in East-Helsinki. Additionally diversity agents provided an outside view and feedback on the project.
The knowledge fields and disciplines reflected in the design are educational science, teachers pedagogy, artistic research, artistic practice, artists pedagogy, handicrafts like carpentry and metal-working, clay-work, painting as also dance and Life Art And Performance Studies and communication. The structure of the project is circling around a main group, which meets regularly to develop and monitor the project constantly. Members of this core group take care of certain tasks and bring the different people in the two different branches of Fair Sculpture together. In the two different branches regular feedback sessions ask for the input and thoughts of each participant. Hierarchies are tried to avoid and each participant is welcome to join the core group, if liked so. The aim is to constantly bring the people together, grow the amount of participants and expand the project to more places. All in all each representative can always get in contact with the other. Regularly info mails are send to all representatives interested in the development of the project. In this way it was possible to consider everyone's individual knowledge as valuable. Naturally also the kids and youngsters knowledge went into the interaction of each other.
Often in artistic projects with youth the idea is around doing something which results in something like a product, may it be a painting, a sculpture and similar. In Fair Sculpture we like to implement real artistic thinking, something that might be called artist´s pedagogy. This artist´s pedagogy has a different societal impact that differs from the former mentioned approaches. It is more directed to real structural change of opening up horizons, that we hope will orientate the youth to the world. And will find understanding and again later approaches on what it means for each of them to be in this world. This is why in the afternoon schools there is not really program in the sense of now we make this and that, but with each of the participants is discussed what they see would make sense for them to work with under the given circumstances. The same goes for the residency branch, where the artists work in a school, not at teachers, but as artists.
It is our vision, that Fair Sculpture, as a role-model could be implemented at many different other places national in Finland and international. As the methodology is using already given infrastructure (grey energy, hard and soft), the threshold for raising funding is made lower and therefor more sustainable.
As a methodology in Fair Sculpture we implement real artistic thinking, something that might be called artist´s pedagogy. This artist´s pedagogy has a different societal impact that differs from approaches of creative or artistic production. It is more directed to real structural change by opening up horizons, by which we hope the kids and youngsters will be orientated to the world. And will find understanding and again later approaches on what it means for each of them to be in this world. This is why in the afternoon schools there is not really program in the sense of now we make this and that, but with each of the participants is discussed what they see would make sense for them to work with under the given circumstances. The same goes for the residency branch, where the artists work in a school, not at teachers, but as artists. All in all the methodology underlines in that way democratic values.
The project addresses global challenges amongst others, segregation, youth disillusionment, social dislocation, as also future viability/sustainability.
So far with the help of the little seed funding we got, we were able to keep the weekly afternoon school for kids and youngsters from East Helsinki last year and are able to keep a few more sessions also in this spring of 2023. Last year we also had an open call for the residency artists in schools and first artists are now in February and March each working for four weeks as artists in the school in Joutsa. We try to demonstrate at the moment how such a program can take advantage of already given built- and institutional-structures and enrich the community at the same way. For future steps we are looking into raising funding to be able to grow the project. We plan to implement a 3-years project-plan in which we want to give many more kids and youngsters from the capital area of Helsinki the possibility to participate. We are convinced of the tremendous impact such a project makes on each child and hope to be able to create this experience for as many children as possible. For further afternoon schools and the residency places at schools we intend to work together with diverse groups and institutions all over Helsinki and Finland (we have been in contact already with youth centres, and schools). One problem that we faced for the intended residency places at schools was, the question of space. Space for the residency artists to work at the schools as artists. At least in Helsinki and the wider capitol region, this was one reason why we did not find a suitable place. Although the overall interest by the schools into the project was very high. For that reason and for the reason, that we think the weekly afternoon school covers the Helsinki region, we decided to look for cooperation with schools outside the capitol region in rural areas of Finland. These possibilities of residencies in many different schools all over Finland is another aim we are following now. We'd also like to spread the idea of Fair Sculpture to inspire other institutions to implement the project.
In Fair Sculpture learners and educators have the possibility to be pedagogically orientated towards the world. As simple as this might sound, as difficult it is. Meaningly only by understanding ones own place in the world and understanding what the world is asking from me, and not to see the world as something that is there for me, only then the skills and knowledge can be developed for a more sustainable and greener future. Fair Sculptures methodology with artists pedagogy addressing directly structural change contributes to these needed new competences.
