Promoting Changes today 17-19
Finnish Labour Museum Werstas
May 8 - June 20
Finlayson
The museum is open Tuesday–Sunday from 11 am–6 pm



The show “Promoting Changes” explores the diverse ways in which mediated representations function in the construction of identity politics.

The show comprises of four different topics – activism, communities, fashion and the wild. The works in the show overlap with each other and none of the works don’t necessarily represent only one approach.

The show explores possibilities for another kind of narration for some of the stories transmitted by mass media, and how hegemonic models of thinking could be shifted through narratives. The exhibition is targeted at young people and we have chosen to mostly use socially engaged methods.

Härmälä family group home, the Lammi refugee centre, Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK) Fine Art students and Pispala contemporary art center Hirvitalo will collaborate to realize the show.

Liisa Ahlfors:
Pretty slipper socks for ickle feet!
Performative installation
Pretty slipper socks for ickle feet! is a performative installation that depicts the making of process of my work Dream On. During Promoting Changes exhibition I will knit slipper socks for babies at the Finnish Labour Museum Werstas. The spectator is invited to sit on a sofa to see this one-girl manufacturing plant.

Hirvitalo:
Virtual Forest Conflict sites

Hirvitalo is exploring conflicts that appear in Nordic forests by extending them into the online virtual world of Second Life. You can participate and explore the conflicts in Second Life or in the exhibition and a workshop in Werstas.

Twilight Picnic in the Devastated Forest - Workshop in the Night of the Museums in 15.5. at 18-22
Luonto-Liitto will present the following documentaries at Werstas:
Luonto ei tunne rajoja (Kari Kemppainen, 2004),
Last Joik in Sámi Forest (Hannu Hyvönen, 2008)
Sateenkaaren pää (Ritva Kovalainen & Sanni Seppo, 2007)
As a part of the screening Hirvitalo will organize a twilight picnic in which the relationship between present day city dwellers and the forest is investigated.

Lukas Hoffman, Ilpo Jääskeläinen, Mikko Torvinen
Nord Stream - The Game

The platform game Nord Stream is based on the scheduled natural gas offshore pipeline which will be built between Vyborg in Russia and Greifswald in Germany by the company Nord Stream AG. In the Nord Stream game the player will take the role of the builder of the pipeline.

Härmälä family group home, Lammi refugee center, Anna Knappe, Pekka Niskanen, Timo Piikkilä, Jaana Ristola:
Youth as Refugees
During the project the team teaches the young refugees to film and edit videos, in which they get to tell about their life in the reception centres. The finished videos will be gathered into a website that opens in summer 2010.

Mikko Keskiivari
I am YouTube
Work in progress

I am YouTube is a portrait of a community; but the documentary-like production presents also lifestyle of a certain generation and culture. It is a work about structures of families, sexuality, playing roles of adulthood and about sincerely growing up. Cinematic cut of video material and Keskiivari’s electronic music rearrange the life of the community.

Mikael Kinanen, Vili Nissinen:
Everyday Clothes Stories
Everyday clothes stories is a fashion show that emphasizes the wearers and their ideas on what they are wearing. Normally, the emphasis would be on a designer and on what he wants to say, but not here.

Essi Laurila, Martta Tuomaala:
Speech Bubbles @ City

Community art comic strip project Speech Bubbles @ City invades a part of public space in the centre of Tampere. The project is made in collaboration with 15-20-year-old students from different schools of Tampere. Young people have made comic strips about things they haven’t had chance or courage to do. 

Karoliina Paappa, Leena Pukki:
Route Couture

The art project Route Couture presents garments made of the skins of road kills as expensive high fashion. By doing so, the project challenges consumers to question general opinions on beauty, luxury, and on marketing values and truths. (The project Route Couture consists of actual garments,  series of fashion and fine art photographs, web pages and a making of -segment.)

Read more about Youth as Refugees project in this blog

Promoting Changes is invited to Inter-Cool 3.0 exhibition. The exhibition will open in September 2010 and will contain environmental, media and social works of art from world-famous artists as well as from TAMK’s fine art students.

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Inter-Cool 3.0
RUHR.2010|||
Promoting Changes is a Tampere Art Factory exhibition
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