By Mike Watson
Tuula Närhinen, Baltic Sea Plastique (2013–2014), videostill
Just one day into a recent seven day trip to Finland it was evident that my usual line of inquiry in relation to state cultural provision and its alternatives was not particularly relevant.
In Italy, where I have resided since 2008, a void left by failing state and municipal support has been filled by a strong nationwide movement of occupation widely known as the Bene Comune movement (‘Common Good’), seizing public institutions in danger of being privatized or abandoned such as Rome’s Teatro Valle. Such a model, which has gained worldwide attention for its emphasis on the common (i.e. neither state nor private) ownership of cultural institutions and the public sphere could perhaps be effectively applied elsewhere. In the UK, for example, where the coalition government has applied a slash and burn policy across social sectors, aside from student tuition fee protests, a Bene Comune type movement seems conspicuously absent, not least in the art context. In Finland, arts provision seems generous, if not luxurious in comparison – with working grants of six months to five years available to artists. That said, with a view to Finland’s upcoming general election on 19 April 2015, arts funding could be one of the casualties.
I started my research trip with a visit to the city of Oulu in northern Finland, hosted by the Finnish Cultural Foundation as an international curator for their Pohjavirta (‘Undercurrent’) project, which will fund eight outdoor works across the region of Northern Ostrobothnia (where Oulu is located), to be completed by Summer 2015. In the five days in which I stayed in Oulu I undertook studio and on-site visits with artists Eeva Kaisa Jakkila and Jussi Valtakari, Rita Porkka, Tero Mäkelä and Johanna Riepula, Jouna Karsi, and Joonas Mikola, covering a distance of 650 km.
Over that time I quickly came to see the Finnish artists I encountered as being deeply committed both to ‘nature’ and to a strong sense of community. Perhaps the work most emblematic of this tendency is that planned by husband and wife partnership Eeva Kaisa Jakkila and Jussi Valtakari as part of the Pohjavirta project. The artist duo envisage constructing a wooden bridge to reconnect a small island to the town of Taivalkoski, allowing its inhabitants to take advantage of rural wilderness largely unshaped by human hands. Whilst the public work, which will be finished by July 2015, could be seen as an instance in which the artist supplements the role of the state or council in town planning, this would not be possible if the local and national authorities in Finland were not so open to arts projects. The Finish Cultural Foundation is a private entity largely sponsored by bequeathments and other donations, yet it operates within a wider social context favorable to artistic activity.
Eeva Kaisa Jakkila, Talvi Valoa (Winter Light), 2013, watercolour
Indeed, one might ask what there could be to rally against in a country which enjoys the benefits of an education system which is the envy of the world, and where water quality, air quality, levels of employment and pay are better than in the average OECD country? The answer, it seems, is that in a country that still has a model of social welfare which others either never had or are becoming nostalgic for, the primary motivating political cause would appear to be ecology. In fact, astoundingly, in the five days I spent in the Northern Ostrobothnia region and the following three spent in Helsinki, ecological issues were cited by every single artist and arts professional with whom I spoke as a primary concern. This is more significant if one considers that the Pohjavirta project – in which the final eight projects were selected from over 100 submissions by four curators – has no specific intrinsic focus on ecology. In a country with a huge functioning state, the way in which a consideration of macro level politics and the role of the state is virtually leapfrogged in favour of a consideration of humankind’s relation with the great outdoors is impressive. However, it remains to be understood whether it isn’t precisely the state’s own role in the perceived deterioration of the relationship between nature and the individual human that needs to be taken into account.
Antti Tenetz, Tracing (2014), video
The exhibition ‘Checkpoint Leonardo’ at OMA– Oulu’s Museum of Art – examined the relation between art and science. The fifteen artists involved focused upon physical, chemical, audio and biological phenomena and psychology. Works of note included Antti Tenetz’s Tracing (2014), a two screen video installation presenting research in which the artist used drones, underwater cameras and other means of surveillance to follow the paths of trout and wolves in Northern Finland; and Tuula Närhinen’s Baltic Sea Plastique (2013–14), a video installation with accompanying sculptures made of plastic refuse. In the video we see plastic debris take on an almost animate form as it ebbs and flows with the sea’s current, underlining what appears to be a central fear for Finnish artists: in an increasingly digitalized society there is a risk of nature becoming engulfed by manmade clutter – the detritus of industrial production – while the chatter of informational data comes to predominate people’s minds. Finland, with its sparse population (it has a population density of18 people per km² as opposed to 212 per km² in the UK) and relatively unspoiled environment has, again, everything to lose. When a century’s old balance between humankind and nature begins to falter, perhaps it is the government which needs to put capitalist production in check.
Tuula Närhinen Baltic Sea Plastique (2013–2014), videostill
With Finland’s economy having endured a number of blows in the last seven years it is liable that austerity – effectively having become a byword for the slashing of public expenditure – will be a key electoral issue, although overtures will certainly be made by the principle parties to the Green lobby. In 2014 the Green Party departed from Alexander Stubbs’s coalition government following opposition to plans to build a Nuclear power station in the municipality of Pyhäjoki. This followed the departure of the Left Alliance following opposition to welfare cuts and left the coalition government with 102 seats, one more than they need to command a majority.
With the Green and pro-Welfare lobbies perhaps being crucial to the outcome of the coming election, the voices of Finnish cultural practitioners may become relevant, even though there seems to be a relative lack of directly political statements as they are put forth in, say, Italy or Greece. This is due to firstly their preoccupation with ecology, brining visibility to issues which could affect an election outcome, and secondly because arts expenditure is often the first thing to be cut by an administration practicing ‘austerity’. It is in this light that The Finnish Arts Policy Summit was organized in November 2014, in Helsinki, bringing together 520 people.
Organized by Israeli artist Dana Yahalomi, the Baltic Circle and Checkpoint Helsinki (a new arts commissioning body in Helsinki) the conference invited current and prospective cultural policy makers to pitch their vision of Finland’s future cultural policy. Amongst the things that emerged was a strong desire to appeal to private money via, for example, tax relief for art purchasers – one sign of what could turn out to be a general neo-liberal turn in cultural funding policy. In the background of this debate looms a discussion about the projected Guggenheim Museum in Helsinki. The project – proposed by the Guggenheim Solomon R. Foundation – was rejected by the Helsinki city board in 2012, partly due to high cost and lack of public transparency. Following this, a new proposal has resulted, in 2013, in an open architectural competition, in response to a space set aside by the municipality at Eteläsatama, the southern harbour area which is a short walk from Helsinki’s central railway station and immediately visible when arriving by sea.
one of the six short-listed, anonymised architectural proposals for Guggenheim Helsinki
A shortlist of six proposals has been selected by an international jury chaired by Mark Wigley, the winner of which will be announced in June (at the current stage, though the six finalists have been named, their respective projects are kept anonymous). The private project is liable to enjoy state funding (around one million euros per year according to recent estimates), though it may arguably also generate considerable tax revenue and profit, whilst helping to place Helsinki firmly on the international art map. ‘The Next Helsinki’ is a competing competition critical of the Guggenheim plan, attempting to offer – to quote from the initiative’s website– alternatives ‘to the trends of luxury branding, mono-culturization, top-down decision-making processes and privatization of common goods’, again with an international jury chaired by Michael Sorkin, whom will announce competition results on 20 April.
Whatever the outcome of these competitions, and of the upcoming general election, it is clear that there is much at stake as one of the world’s most generous arts funding models is set to undergo changes.