Saari Residence’s mentoring programme

In late 2020, we launched a mentoring programme to support artists in their work. Due to the coronavirus pandemic and the travel restrictions it has caused, some of our individual artist residencies will take the form of home residencies and some will be carried out in situ at the Saari Residence in Mietoinen. Every artist in residence at the Saari Residence – whether they work at home or are physically present at Saari – has the opportunity to participate in mentoring carried out through a remote connection during their two-month residency.

The Saari Residence wants to help artists grow and develop their work. The idea for the mentoring programme came about as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and the travel restrictions it has caused, which resulted in the necessity to organise some of the individual artist residencies in the form of home residencies and some in situ at the Saari Residence in Mietoinen. The mentoring programme offers every artist in residence at the Saari Residence – whether they work at home or are physically present at Saari – the opportunity to participate in two mentoring meetings carried out through a remote connection during their two-month residency.  The mentoring programme does not, however, apply to researchers working with the help of a grant from Kone Foundation who are receiving a longer-term funding from the Foundation and have the possibility to utilise Kone Foundation’s Grants+ programme, one of whose services is peer mentoring.

The mentoring consists of a one-to-one conversation during which the mentor supports and offers an exchange of ideas to the person being mentored to help them with their artistic work, the development of their artistic thinking and other work-related issues. Our mentors are key professionals in their fields of art who live in Finland. They have a career spanning at least a couple of decades and are skilled listeners and conversationalists. They all also have a personal relationship with the Saari Residence. The mentors also bring their own networks and references to the conversations which may promote the networking of the person being mentored with art actors in their own field in Finland and internationally.

An artist awarded an individual residency has the opportunity to participate in two one-hour long mentoring sessions, in addition to which they can book a 30-minute long introductory conversation designed to help the mentor and artist to get to know each other. This introductory conversation may take place either in connection with the first meeting or in a separate meeting agreed in advance. The conversations are conducted remotely.

An artist in residence can choose the most suitable mentor for their work from among the mentors available who represent various fields of art. To help you choose, we provide introductory texts about the mentors and keywords that describe their areas of expertise and fields of competence. You can either use the same mentor both times or choose two different mentors if you think it will benefit your work more.

In 2021, we have invited the following to act as mentors in the Saari Residence’s programme: artist Andy Best, curator Taru Elfving, choreographer Maija Hirvanen, composer and sound artist Maija Hynninen, theatre director Atro Kahiluoto and poet Jyrki Kiiskinen.