Naapurihmasto group work as the artists in residence during the renovation phase of Lauttasaari Manor

Naapurihmasto, a group of three artists – Heini Aho, Leena Kela and Eero Yli-Vakkuri – will be working as the artists in residence of Lauttasaari Manor, the new premises of Kone Foundation, during its renovation phase. At first, they will be looking for temporary workspaces for themselves because they cannot work in the unfinished manor. The group can be met for the first time during the Lauttasaari Day on 2 September.

Kone Foundation is currently renovating Lauttasaari Manor for its new premises. The Naapurihmasto group plans to examine neighbourliness both on a practical level and as a metaphor. When Kone Foundation moves to the finished manor in late spring 2018, it will become a new neighbour for the residents of Lauttasaari.

Through the concept of neighbourliness, Naapurihmasto intends to reflect on how people affect the things around them and how things affect them. The aim of the group is to promote the meeting of Kone Foundation and Lauttasaari residents, introduce contemporary art to the local community and develop the future residency programme of the manor.

“We will look at the different kinds of relationships between people and things that neighbourliness includes. In the project, we start from the relationships between people and move on to organisms and the relationships between other non-human actors. The background is the idea of post-humanism in which the human is only a part of the ecosystem and not its centre”, says Leena Kela.

Naapurihmasto plan to work collectively and invite different experts to contemplate and discuss with them. Each artist will also complete their own piece during the coming winter.

Leena Kela, who assembled the group, is a performance artist and curator. She has been working on performances since 2000 and is currently a doctoral student at the Academy of Fine Arts of the University of the Arts Helsinki. In her work, Heini Aho combines sculpture, installation and elements of moving image to create pieces that address questions related to the observation of space and environment. Aho graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts of the University of the Arts Helsinki in 2015. Eero Yli-Vakkuri is known for performances implemented on the terms of a site, specific space or group, conceptual art projects as well as video pieces criticising technology and media. He has studied at the Estonian Academy of Arts and Tampere University of Applied Sciences.

The Naapurihmasto project is part of the manor’s art acquisition programme that follows the percent for art principle. You can follow news about Naapurihmasto on Kone Foundation’s Facebook page and Instagram using the hashtag #naapurihmasto.

 

Meet Naapurihmasto

In September, you can meet the Naapurihmasto artists at the Lauttasaari Day as well as the discussion held at the Lauttasaari library.

Lauttasaari Day on Saturday 2 September at 13.30-13.40 at Tallbergin puistotie (The main stage of the Lauttasaari Day)

Does your housing cooperative have a rarely used club room or other common area where the Naapurihmasto project could work for a short period of time? Or would you like to invite the artists to work in your home for a day? Are you interested in seeing up close how contemporary artists work? The manor is uninhabitable during the renovations, so the artists are looking for workspaces and ways to work with the residents of Lauttasaari. Come and meet the artists and offer your neighbourly assistance at the Lauttasaari Day.

Discussion on decay on Wednesday 13 September at 18:00–19:30 at the Lauttasaari library (Pajalahdentie 10 A)

What happens in a person when they start loosing their memory? Does the memory disorder trigger a process of decay, resulting in the person disappearing well before physical body functions cease? The discussion combining scientific and artistic perspectives will be attended by neurologist (name will be announced soon), Naapurihmasto artists Heini Aho, Leena Kela and Eero Yli-Vakkuri as well as Janne Nabb and Maria Teeri, an artist duo preparing the Lahopuutarha (Decayed Garden) artworks for the garden of Lauttasaari Manor. The discussion will be in Finnish. Free admission, no advance registration. You are warmly welcome!