Apurahat ja residenssipaikat

Taide

Rewilding – The development of TUO TUO’s ”cultural pollinators” platform and ecologically-focused residency program

Hakemuksen tiivistelmä

Creating the conditions for unruly artistic encounters, TUO TUO is its own unique ecosystem within the field of ecological arts. Established in 2020, TUO TUO is a new artist-led project space and residency located in a former village schoolhouse in Joutsa, Finland. TUO TUO negotiates the point of convergence across sound, visual art, performance and the environmental arts and sciences as the locus for building new forms of community around the arts – an alternative to established urban institutions. With this grant, we seek to strengthen and deepen TUO TUO’s identity and offerings through the process of Rewilding – self-sustaining, abundant and diverse; a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor. Rewilding stands for creating more frictionless environments and more spontaneous opportunities for cultural actors, human and non-human. Over the grant period, we plan to rewild the 2ha of land surrounding the facilities, a holistic process symbiotic with our artist-led programming and residency activities; a more than symbolic gesture highlighting TUO TUO’s foundation as a diverse, blossoming cultural venue. We intend to expand our year-round artist residency model with a new core initiative: TUO TUO’s “cultural pollinators” – a platform designed to support cross-pollination among artist communities whose work and ideas engage with ecological themes and rural settings. The initial list of confirmed participants reflects the diverse spectrum of voices and disciplines within our emerging community. Here are some examples: an established international association with over 120 members and multiple art and science programs, an artist/activist duo whose work revolves around Finnish mythology from a queer-ecofeminist perspective, a curatorial project based in a greenhouse in Vantaa and a genre-fluid electronic music collective for underrepresented actors in Helsinki.

Project space, artist residency, publishing platform, community hub – TUO TUO blurs the binary between city/countryside by offering artists perennial access to its rural context and know-how. Ecologically-focused and artist-led, TUO TUO provides resources, support and preventative respite for a growing community of Finland-based and international artists. Situated in the former village school building of Joutsa’s Pynnölä-Uimaniemi village, TUO TUO has hosted 175+ artists for residencies, collaborated on 40+ projects, and redistributed over 45,000€ in funding directly to artists.

Our work was supported by the Kone Foundation Sept. 2022–Sept. 2024. The support allowed us to experiment by blending international residency activity with Finland-based community projects. We developed a strong phenology practice–traced through our online field notes log–enabling our ecological approach to deepen our rewilding work outside and our internal processes. The quality of the artist experience at TUO TUO was our priority; we stepped away from trying to control the calendar with open calls, opting instead for a gradual process. In year 2, we published niche open calls and introduced our first sliding-scale fee system.

Through our Cultural Pollinators initiative, we collaborated with 18 groups, approaching each collaboration as a niche, and prioritizing the long-term relationship over a one-off output. During the 2 years, over 10,000 in funding was redistributed to artists directly through this initiative and we hosted 50% of artists for free. We launched a new website, taking a compost-style approach to publishing. We published 9 artist interviews, 16 artist features, plus 8 sound projects on True Aether. We created our Resource Library and Esoteric Yellowpages. We were involved in the creation of 5 print publications including Attunement (in) Practice with Feminist Culture House.

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