Minna Heikinaho

Visual artist

My artistic career in 1994 with Ilmainen aamiainen (A Free Breakfast), in Hakaniemi in Helsinki. The work consisted of an open space with a table, around which various encounters developed. In that work I wanted to get close to people, to examine some of the intricacies of everyday life, to see them as being equals despite disparities in social origins and age.

I followed that with Push firma beige, an “action space” in Kallio that was active from 1996-2001. This was an experimental combination of teaching, exhibition and working space in an urban milieu. My own roles there included ranged from participant to chief organizer, taking in everything inbetween. The Push firma beige project brought a whole new sort of co-operative to the Kallio area: it was simultaneously a school, a kindergarten, a forum for various minorities and for individual and group artists. It brought people together in Helsinki, and demonstrated different ways of doing things, different ways of being part of and working with the surrounding community in constructive dialogue.

At the Saari Residence I will be continuing my artistic research by examining the unfinished and open-ended nature of the Push firma beige project. I want to explore how and in what ways I can convey pictorially the fluid meanings and significances of other persons, places, and roles in a changing urban environment.

During my stay I will also finish work on Saatan sanoa (I may say), the last in a trilogy of plays. This final play deals with old age, with life that has been lived. Taken together, the trilogy forms a chronological depiction of different phases of life. The works form part of my postgraduate studies at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, which I began in 2008.

WWW.SAASANOA.COM