photo by Epp Kubu

From February 19th-24th, MoKS organised another GROUND workshop. It was 2nd time in Mooste and 4th GROUND workshop in general (2 more to come in Poznan and Helsinki).
This workshop focused on fieldwork- 16 participants were given possibility to develop a work or research in public institutions of Põlva, Ahja and Tartu. Our collaborators this time were Ahja elderly home, Ahja Youth Center, Estonian National Museum and Põlva Art School.
Though participants had to face several limitations, hardest of them were probably time, language barrier and novelty of a situation, there were strong connections and works developed.

AHJA ELDERLY HOME
Group: Epp Kubu, Lumi Kylm, Iina Ukkonen
At 1st sight most difficult and depressing place. Elderly home is located on ground floor in one of the block houses in Ahja. 15 inhabitants between ages 59-93, all in very different physical and mental conditions.
Epp, Lumi and Iina approached the inhabitants of elderly home with great sensitivity and openness, using different ways to get closer to the place and its people. Eg drawing and everyday chatting. Their research is concluded in a tear bringing short-film Nooruse 2, where you get to know some inhabitants of elderly home. Men and women are portrayed while listening to their favourite music from their youth.

ESTONIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM (TARTU)
Group: Tanel Rander, Katariina Hillo, Piotr Gasiorowski, Susanna Jurvanen
Young and eager team of curators and organisers from Estonian National Museum offered for a GROUND group possibility to interact with their new exhibition. It was the show about consumption culture in Estonia in the turn of the century. As the exhibition was all ready, the GROUND group felt pressure of adding something meaningful for the show.
The exhibition is dominated over 3200 drawings by kids about their most liked and unliked presents. As the exhibition represents and analyses mostly views of active and potential consumers, the GROUND group felt that something is missing- namely the voice of people who are not anymore the targets of marketing. So they conducted a series of interviews with Tartu and Ahja elderly home inhabitants, asking about their youth-hood consumption habits.

AHJA YOUTH CENTER
Group: Nooralotta Ikonen, Anna Kolacka, Dawid Marszewski, Madis Kuningas
The place what seems to have most possibilities and openness, turned out to be a real puzzle for our GROUND group. Tens of kids, all listening to their own music, playing it from headphones, or playing it out loud from small phones or mp3 players, all doing their things, running here and there. How to get them focused? How to cross the language barrier? During the week Nooralotta, Anna, Dawid and Madis tested different ways- playing drums, drawing a common drawing, building a snowtown…
In the final presentation visitors entered the space, what had no kids, but sound, lot of different sounds, recorded during the week in the Youth Center.

PÕLVA ART SCHOOL
Group: Kristiine Špongolts, Hannes Einpaul, Adrianna Borucka, Sylwester Piasecki, Kaisa Karvonen
Põlva Art School is run by an energetic woman called Anne Prangel. As this was very busy week at school, she gently directed our GROUND group to explore the rest of the house where the school is located. The school is on the top floor of the castle-looking Põlva Culture Centre building. Built in 1980ies, the house was meant to be the main cultural centre for the Põlva county, hosting theatre plays, rock and classical music concerts, conferences and fairs. The current situation is different, Põlva cultural centre has definitely the biggest house, but it is one among many others in the area. That means high competition for resources and struggle for finances. Where one has to make a decision whether to put most of its finances into heating and lighting up the giant culture building or developing its programme.
Kristiine, Adrianna and Hannes conducted a series of interviews inside the culture house and outside around town, asking people about their relationship with that building. Sylwester developed a performance, where one could see a man inside a structure, walking with it around the room and trying to get out from the room.

Yes the time was short for developing meaningful relationships and works, but both sides (hosts and artists) could take it as an exercise for creative everyday living and bringing sense into daily routines.

We would like to thank all participants and our collaborators from the locations, particularly Piret Palm from Ahja Youth Center, Milvi Groznõi from Ahja Elderly Home, Anne Prangel from Põlva Art School, Maire Pedras from Põlva Culture Center, Siim Angerpik, Jaanika Jaanits, Pille Runnel and Taavi Tatsi from Estonian National Museum.

Supported by Grundtvig Lifelong learning programme.

GROUND is a collaborative project supported by the EU life-long learning programme, Grundtvig. It is a collaboration between MoKS, Art School MAA of Helsinki Finland and the Art University of Poznan Poland.

This 5-day intensive workshop focused on Strategies of Culture, Collaborative Methods and Site-Specific art practices. We focused on the theme of ‘Narratives’ that includes three areas; the personal, the larger social and site or object narratives. The idea of narrative was explored beyond the basic notion of stories, where we looked at what constitutes the foundation or conditions that allow narratives to develop. The week activities consisted of practical fieldwork and exercises, artist presentations and discussion rounds in an open setting of international artists and students. We want to thank the 20 participants for their time and energy for a very productive week. We are looking forward to the next meeting in Helsinki.