5 Mar 12

GROUNDed


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.

photoes by Siiri Kolka and Evelyn Müürsepp

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12 Feb 12

Leidnikerdajate klubi – Serious Tinkering Club

Danny, Madli, Tuuli and Patrick have just started ...


On 2nd of February 2012 we started a new monthly gathering in MoKS – the Serious Tinkering Club (Leidnikerdajate Klubi). This club is all about inventing, tinkering-reusing-sharing knowledge and appropriating. At the first meeting Tuuli Tubin led a workshop in making wallpaper out of old fabric. It was really inspiring to see how all of the participants had very different approaches:
Madli having the most fantastically colourful picture, rich in additional details;
Danny continuing in the mood of tonal nuances that you will all be able to see in his exhibition soon in our basement gallery (the product of his residency at MoKS);
Patrick going much more geometrical and teaching all of us an important lesson – not all the fabrics stick with the ‘seinaliim’ glue used;
and Siiri thinking a bit too much while planning the composition – but being very excited herself to practice (and Tuuli was the best advisor there):

The general technique is rather simple: you need old fabric for your composition, plastic mesh (and old newspaper to put under it to protect your table/floor), the white wall(paper) glue (‘seinaliim’), spatulas to spread the glue on the fabric.
While we were rehearsing the basics, Tuuli herself experimented with a technique of cutting the fabric into tiny pieces, mixing it into a mass with glue, and spreading this over the mesh. This also seemed to have a really nice outcome.

You are all welcome to join in next time and bring your ideas with you – which means also proposing your own subject and guiding other tinkerers! For example, at some of the next meetings we are probably going to experiment different techniques to tie-connect-glue cardboard with environmentally rather harmless materials (avoiding nails or staples, for instance) to make sculptures or – why not – some useful objects for the household. This will also serve the much bigger MoKS plan that you will hear more about soon – just to keep up the excitement!

The next club is planned for the 1st of March, the doors open at 17:00 and the tinkering foes on until 20:00.
The cost per club night is 3€.
Info: moks.ee
moks_at_moks.ee

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1 Dec 11

Matchbox camera workshop at MoKS, November 26 to 27

Madli pilt koolimajast

Madli pilt Mooste koolist

During these very grey November days, hoping and waiting for the snow and sunlight, the matchbox camera workshop was held at MoKS. The good reason for this was having someone practiced in the mentioned craftwork – Daniel Allen – here as part of a two-month residency at the end of 2011.
So as planned, on Saturday the 26th, a small group of people gathered to learn the secrets of this strange craft. See the gallery below!

The process itself is not actually very complicated – just fairly. Here are main supplies you need:
- an empty matchbox – to cut different size of holes in different parts;
- a little piece of foil (stronger than cooking foil) and a pin to make a hole;
- a black pen to colour the inner parts of the box to avoid any light being reflected anywhere;
- some card to build the shutter;
- a film, of course, and also one old empty film cassette;
- black tape to make your camera fully lightproof;
- and a bit of sponge and half a clothes peg – for spooling the film from one cassette to another smoothly and successfully.

I would say the most difficult part, requiring most assistance needing, is getting the size of the pinhole (aperture) right – to be able to match it later with the approximate shutter speed in certain light conditions.
One of the most beautiful things about taking the photos with such a camera is the game between predictability and unpredictability. One takes pictures of the chosen subjects usually very consciously and also recognises most of these things later on the photos. And there are some extras as well that appear as certain effects (which can emerge from the “mistakes” made while building the camera). Actually there’s hardly any outcome that wouldn’t have these extras – in most cases, I would say, enriching the results.
It should be said that once the film is full of pictures, the camera has to be destroyed to get out the negatives. The good part of this is, however, that if you became good friends with the relations between aperture, light evaluation and shutter speed, you can re-use the same pinhole – as you remember, it’s the hardest part – to build the next camera.

And some more good news is that if you are interested, then please keep an eye on MoKS’ activities in winter-spring 2012 – we are planning to have more of these workshops!

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11 Oct 11

Public Office for Architecture / Kid Space Cabinet

MoKS was home to the Public Office for Architecture during the whole month of August as part of the X_OP residency program. The nomadic architecture project was accompanied by Kid Space Kabinet, a continuation of Fantasy World Workshop by artist Cristina David.

The Public Office for Architetcure explores the link between private and public interest in the practice of architecture. A temporary architecture office was established at MoKS, open to the public and free of charge. The public was invited to consult any architectural needs or questions they may have. In return every project that was taken on by the Public Office added one component to the program of requirements that was decidedly of public interest, initiating a dialog between private needs and public needs in the dynamics of architectural services. Four distinctly different projects were taken on by the office while in Mooste which will be followed up over the coming months.

The Public Office for Architecture is conceived as a nomadic project that will span over several years. The inaugural project hosted by MoKS was followed by Public Office for Architecture at Galeria HIT in Bratislava, with several projects planned for 2012. The accumulated work will serve as a collection of case studies to argue for a revision in the client-architect relationship within the practice of architecture as a service industry.

Public Office for Architecture is generously supported by MoKS, Galeria HIT, CECArtsLink and the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts. Many thanks to Evelyn and Siiri from MoKS and to our fabulous assistant and translator Iris Allese.

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8 Jan 10

Petra Kapš / x-op residency

Dear reader, here are some thoughts, memories and photos, that came out of my one month residency stay at Moks in November 2009 …

One of the deepest traces in my memory are connected with silence that I had the pleasure of listening to when smoking a cigarette outside, staring through the window, taking long walks around the small lake and through the forest, lying in bed early in the morning, when light was still shy and I was concentrated on the outside just to hush up my thoughts … or the silence I listened to when being with/sitting with people and listening to them or to myself … always listening what silence spoke to me. Unconsciously, silence and the mere fact of being by myself most of the time gave me inner beauty and clearness. While contemplating, I realised I almost selfishly protected my “by my self” being there … And again, I emphasise the importance of primary, basic activities like burning a fire, just sitting in front of the flames and enjoying purifying softness of the parching heat and sounds of redness … and there, somewhere in-between, disperse silence emanates, that helps you to really hear yourself. Maybe this is all what there is around the mystery of silence, yearning, exploring and researching of it?

When I told people I would be at Moks the whole November, I noticed a hesitation concerning the persisting greyness of the day. But that was exactly what I wanted – to experience November light in Mooste (and Tartu, Pärnu ….) and all the varieties of hazes and yes, there are thousands of different greys and blues (from purple to the white pearl to dense black).

About curatorial dinners …

The question how to perform a “curatorial research” on a personal level somewhere with very little things known, was challenging for me. But soon I found a satisfying possibility in phenomena of “dinners” – through intimacy of social ritual like eating together. And there I had seven different stories with different people and artists. Also, I have to say it was fun experimenting with local food supplies.

with Riho Kall
apple, orange, almond and raisin cake

with John Grzinich
tagliatelle with tomatoes, mozzarella and cheese, olives and red vine


with Evelyn Müürsepp
red peppers, zucchini, almonds, raisins with soya sauce and cardamom, rice and carrots with garlic and lemon, cake with cherry jam and chocolate from the market


with Toomas Thetloff
we changed roles, Toomas was the cook, we had liver, red beet and cottage cheese


with Patrick McGinley
mixed smoked and very (!!!) salty fish with cream sauce, rice, clementines with dark chocolate


with Erkki Luuk
smoked fish in cream sauce with garlic and butter potatoes with dill, mandarines with dark chocolate

with Anna Hints
I don’t have a photo of our meeting, we met at Werner cafe in Tartu, we had coffee and carrot cake

Here are some photos of my oscillation between fascination, artistic researches, writings, spontaneous acts, researching of words … (I still believe words can correspond with persons on intimate level, on political level – or with other words, words are not what we think they are – sometimes, when someone tells us something, they are just … nothing, empty, and maybe they are empty because of speaker’s emptiness – and here I don’t mean the emptiness in zen perspective).

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27 Oct 09

Kaspar & Susanne (July/August 2009)

An elderly lady in the beautiful allotments recieves one of our homemade ice-cream lollies.

An elderly lady in the beautiful allotments recieves one of our homemade ice-cream lollies.

Dear all…

A little late but life jumped back into the fast lane once we got back to Germany. Mooste seems a million miles away now. Which is sad.

Between the 15th of July and the 31st of August we spent a six week MOKS residency in Mooste, creating a body of work to address themes that emerged during the first week of our stay. Our work explored Estonian identity in the locality using a variety of participative and interactive techniques, a body of work that looks at the relationships between people, place and history.

Interventions included the creation of a moped procession through the village, sand mapping on the local beach, a photo-shoot in the baron’s clothes, hiding messages on homemade ice cream and infiltrating Google Maps.

Information and documentation relating to these events can be found on our website at http://treacleonline.wordpress.com/archive1/moks-residency/

We can’t describe how much we valued our time in Mooste. For the first few weeks at MOKS we managed to balance work and life for the first time in many years. The question is how to keep hold of this.

Hope all goes well and look forward to seeing you all again some time in the near future,
Kaspar & Susanne

PS. Exciting scenes in the basement! We look forward to seeing how everything develops over the next year.

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23 Oct 09

MoKS residency September 2009

From many options this year we took the residency at MoKS(Mooste), Estonia,and we chose the best place to rest, to meet very interesting people and to think about our future creative activities.
MoKS center at Mooste is only 43 km (40 min by bus) from Tartu- the very important Estonian cultural centre with an excellent Art College, galleries and other interesting places. For us it was very easy to connect with all this, because Evelyn and John from MoKS team it made possible and introduced us to local artists and organized for us meetings with them.
We were very glad of our accommodation – having two large rooms and with local grocery and well equipped kitchen made our life pretty comfortable.
Very welcoming MoKS team added lot of good memories to this September residency.

Irena Biechonska and Jerzy Biechonsky

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26 Sep 09

from kanako sasaki

Hello,
I was the resident for Moks this September. Well, I’ll leave on Monday already, but it has been a great experience for me to meet the local people and learn about the countryside life style in Estonia.
I will have few photo shoots to go.
It feels like the real autumn has arrived.
Anyway,
I have some blog entries under my site, please check!

http://diary.kanakosasaki.com/

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21 Jul 09

Siim Tiirk’s new blog

Mooste photographer and graffiti artist Siim Tiirk has started a new blog. View his work here.

Foto NAGI's: P6301999

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21 Jul 09

oak hug

Sitting on a float on the stoop
drinkin some saku
and now the sky is back and I swear
a fly just spit on me
That yellow smell of plastic and
I know I’m not at the beach and
the 500 people might think I’m a freak
but that’s okay cause the two oak
trees that love each other will cover
me with drips and
I will always shiver in the cardigan from
a lost and found
The inflatable
whistles and luckily I know how to
say the last
e of mooste.

——————————————————
During the remaining 2 weeks and 3 days of my precious time at MoKs
I will be wandering around on the blog now and then.
yours truly,
Sandra Sitron

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