Latest news in the international action
Italy, Art Center of Pesaro and Academy of Fine Arts of Urbino
Our aim at the Voionmaa Institute is to widen our international co-operation perspective to Italy and its institutes of visual arts. In March 2011 Hannu Sinisalo visited the Art Center of Pesario (Centro Arti Visive Pescheria), LEDA (Laboratorio Educational Department Accademia di Belle Arti di Urbino) and the Art Academy of Urbino (Accademia di Belle Arti di Urbino) and had discussions about co-operation forms and possibilities with Antonella Micaletti, the leader of LEDA in Pesaro, and Sebastiano Guerrera, director of the Art Academy of Urbino. Please notice also our new annual magazine “Väinö” in the hands of Sebastiano Guerrera! Look at the video.
Career opportunities in the Nordic countries
Information about our long-term (ten months) photograpic courses are now promoted also at the www-site of the Björk which is a programme to inform people in the Baltic region and North-West Russia about education and career opportunities in the Nordic countries.
Photos from Albania at the Museum of Cultures, Helsinki
A selection of 154 photos about contemporary Albania can be seen on screen at the Marubi-exhibition, in the Museum of Cultures, Helsinki. Photos are taken by the students of Voionmaa Institute: Veli-Matti Hoikka, Nina Leppälä, Laura Näkki, Turkka Nikula, Rauli Riihiaho and Jaan-Erik Vainio (some are former students but still with us), also by teacher in charge Hannu Sinisalo. Exhibition is open until the 9th of January 2011.We were in Tirana and Vlora from the 6th of May to the 13th of May. Look our photos which are in the Museum of Cultures.
Towards Albania and Scotland
The network of our foreign co-operation partners is growing: With the Pärnu Museum of New Art (MONA) and the Pärnu International Anthropological and Documentary Film Festival (PIDA) we signed already a collaboration agreement in the beginning of this year. Now we have a new contract about co-operation with the art school Lindart and the photographic Projekt5.6.
Our journey began already at the opening of Marubi-exhibition on the 4th of May in the Museum of Cultures, Helsinki. The General Honour Consul of Albania, Ms Liliana Verdha, treated us supper after opening at Seurahuone. The Voionmaa Institute has also supported the Exhibition. At the opening was also Albanian TV, Top Channel, which made a short news insert.
On Wednesday the 5th of May we flew via Milan to Tirana. We strolled through the city in day and at night, visited art school Lindart and Projekt5.6, met students of photography and film making, visited as invited guests beach town Vlora and after all, opened with 18 prints and slide show our own photo exhibition Private Space at the Projekt5.6, Rruga Kajo Karafili.
All our photos of this exhibition can be seen here.
Photos taken in the opening party can be seen here. We photographed differend themes about Albania and its character.
The other group of students of photography (course II) made their way at the same time towards Edinburgh, Scotland. Here they became acquainted with Scottishness, made contact photography on the streets of Edinburgh and visited the photo organization Scotland’s centre for photography. A tentative collaboration agreement with the Scotland’s centre for photography will be signed as soon as may be after finishing details.
The students of photography (Course II) in front of the gallery Stills, which is a part of the Scotland’s centre for photography, in Edinburgh 10.5.2010. Photo Anne Aromaa.
The Voionmaa Institute has, and will continue to, engage in a variety of international activities. In 2005 we participated with a photo exhibition in the Kaunas Photo Days in Lithaunia and as well as the exhibition of the AKTO Art & Design School in Athens, Greece.
In 2008-2009 photos of our Photography students were selected for two international publications: the Polish annual Czas Cultury that introduced Finnish contemporary culture and book Work – Changing Faces, a collection on the changing concept of work.
The art book Look!The First Book was created by 24 of our Photography students in spring 2008. The book is in both Finnish and English and has been our most important manifestation of skill when searching for foreign partners.
Look! The First Book proves that a group of talented young people is able to independently produce a real, fascinating art book that can be introduced internationally.
After publishing Look! The First Book, this group has organised two photo exhibitions titled Private Space.
The first exhibition was held 11.5.-30.7.2009 in Athens, Greece at the gallery of the AKTO Art & Design School, our first international partner.
The second exhibition was held 4.10.-1.11.2009 at the Museum on New Art (MONA) in Pärnu, Estonia.
Watch the interview of Mark Soosaar, director of MONA here. And see how we organised this exhibition here.
In July 2009, Veera Airas, a student of our Film and TV department participated in the Pärnu International Documentary and Anthropological Film Festival (PIDA) in Estonia with her short documentary Hairy Business. This film was shown in a special screening to invited guests at the award ceremony.
In the photo, festival director Mark Soosaar is dancing with Veera Airas on the parquet of MONA after the special screening at the award ceremony. Photo by Hannu Sinisalo.
Watch the interview of Veera Airas in Pärnu here. The future will bring more international activities: We have been invited for cooperation and exhibitions in Tirana, Albania, and Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Our Albanian partners will be the art school Projekt56 and the Lindart organisation. In Bosnia, we will collaborate with the Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina which concentrates on contemporary multiculturalism of Sarajevo. You can watch the short invitation and greeting videos of Adem Karapus (Bosnia) here and Eleni Laperi (Albania) here.
Our partner in Bosnia is General Jovan Divjak, who was interviewed last August in Bosnia during the international Sarajevo film Festival. Watch the interview here.
Text by Hannu Sinisalo
