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

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

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

Click here to view the embedded video.

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!

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.

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.

Following this research phase we are entering the period where we need to visualize the data, that is, translate it into a visual form in order to graphically lay out the information for the printed form. Carsten Stabenow and Andreas Töpfer will be designing and editing the final design of the map, but in order to do so we needed to brainstorm what a printed sound map could look like and edit some of the data collected and shape it into a usable form.

See the Tallinn Sound Diaries by Andreas Töpfer.

“Lokaalne ja globaalne MoKS” for SIRP (Eesti keeles)

English version on ARTISHOK

Evelyn and the board

A number of officials and past figures came out to show their appreciation.

Piret Lindpere from the Ministry of Culture speaks

Two excellent artistic performance were given in the new ‘common’ space on the second floor.

Patrick McGinley aka 'murmer' creates a live feedback performance with audience participation

Mari Kalkun charms the space with voice and kantele

The event also opened and exhibition of works by artists involved with MoKS.

Mari Jõgiste exhibits her visual works in the cellar gallery

large scale drawing works on display by Evelyn Müürsepp

Here is a photo gallery of the various spaces at MoKS (studios, kitchen, cellar, sauna).

MoKS annual summer art symposium AVAMAA took place from August 16-21. The biggest challenge this year was to conduct the symposium almost without being able to use MOKS. With the exception of using the basement for 2 of the workshops, the building was pretty much unusable because of the current state of intensive renovation. The same could be said for the final concert event, Mesi Kõrvadele which was supposed to be held in the new Mooste concert hall (folgikoda), but was held in the Kultuurimaja instead also because of renovation work. Given these conditions we still managed to pull everything off, hosting and feeding all 37+ participants for a week creative endeavors in the Mooste schoolhouse. Details of the workshops, projects and week long program can be found on the MOKS website.

We would like to thank the MOKS team and all the participants for their creative energy this year: John W Fail, Giles Bailey, Natalia Borissova, Selda Asal, Cem, Marko Kosnik, Monica Glahn, Lara Tau Viera, Michael Saup, Di Clay, Nick Clay, Goncalo Leite Velho, Andrus Kallastu, Hans Gunter Lock, Leonora Palu, Indrek Palu, Kai Kallastu, John Grzinich, Evelyn Müürsepp, Maarin Ektermann, Mari Jõgiste, Patrick McGinley, Jaanika Jaanits, Piibe Kolka, Tom Grzinich, Leela Elison, Toomas Thetloff, Siim Tiirik, Mari Kalkun, Taavi Tatsi, Kaisa Sammelselg, Grigori Lotman, Caleb Waldorf, Piret K, Maria Rõhu, Kurt Korthals, Andreas Leo Findeisen

After Curatorial Dinner exhibition

The artistic project ‘After curatorial dinner’ was conceived by Petra Kapš during her one month x-op residency in MOKS. She researched the artistic production of a number of artists (Riho Kall, John Grzinich, Evelyn Müürsepp, Toomas Thetloff, Patrick McGinley, Erkki Luuk, Anna Hints) through dinner conducted as a social ritual. The exhibition contained works that were produced in connection to the process of her residency.

MUTOPIA 6

The 6th edition of MUTOPIA was held during the event and was led by Tero Nauha and John Grzinich. While the group was fairly small the effort was of the participants was highly focused and concentrated. Most of the workshop took place in the public spaces around Tomar and focused on two locations in particular, the monument outside the courthouse (in the middle of a parking lot) and the main gardens under the castle. Below is a short video compilation that randomly composites some of the sound, movement and text exercises.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Early in the morning on August 24th, just after AVAMAA, some construction workers peered through the windows at the back of MoKS only to find some artists sleeping on the hay inside. Tere hommikust! The renovation of MoKS has begun. First the facade and re-grading of the exterior will be done, while it is warm I suspect. In parallel the basement will be worked on to secure the foundation. Then they’ll move on to the interior, heating system and other details. The amount of work is significant yet according to plan, everything should be ready by the end of 2010. Lets see… check here for updates.

This means some temporary changes will be made to the residency program, particularly for 2010. We are looking into some option to keep the residency open but probably scaled down and at another location. If you are planning to apply, please write and ask about the status of the program and be prepared for a flexible situation.

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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

After visiting some of the nearby forests around Mooste it is clear that this will be a big year for blueberries. A small group of 4 people from the residency was able to collect more than 2 liters of berries in just over an hour. What does one do with all these berries? They’re just fine eaten fresh, but you can easily make pies, jams, smoothies and have extras to share with friends and family.

A small experiment is being done to see if we can sustain a garden at MoKS. We hope the garden can be functional for producing food for visiting artists especially during the time of AVAMAA the summer art symposium in late August. But besides being practical, a garden can be a place to continue to develop the discussion of local food production by setting the idea into practice. So far we have, potatoes, beans, rucola, strawberries, rhubarb and a number of herbs taking root. A garden is also a way to share the work around MoKS. With visitors coming and going each month, some forms of continuous collaboration can happen even between people who will never meet. This was part of the idea of Ana Carvalho when she started the garden in May. So this is partly a report for her to show how her project has developed. In this case visiting artists Tero Nauha and Karolina Kucia made some contributions including the start of a rock garden.

One of the main themes that was explored during the residency of Emma Lipp and Matt Marble was local food production. While searching for ingredients for their meals a number of sources for local food came out with a little research (besides what we try to share from our garden in the summer). The son of an entrepreneur in Mooste manages a factory and farm for pickling which includes cucumbers, potatoes and cabbages all grown on site. We went to visit the facility to see how the production was done. Much to our surprise, we found out it is possible to cure pickles in 24 hours! These are not the usual kind of sour pickles made with vinegar, but only from salt and spices. The result, fresh and delicious!

Evelyn and John from MoKS are spending a few weeks in Dresden Germany in a residency at 7.Stock. This literally means 7th floor which is what it is. We occupy a studio on the 7th floor of an old DDR administrative building in the center of the city. The building is mostly empty with the exception of a number of artist studios on the 6th and 7th floor. While this is an almost ideal situation there are a number of ongoing problems, mostly of a political nature with different administrative departments of the city. These problems essentially keep the 7.Stock project from growing and going more official. Nonetheless this artist initiative has hosted many artists and events over the past few years in a sincere and well coordinated manner.

Our aim here is rather open, to work on continuing personal projects and to prepare for a performance in Berlin. There we will take part in the parahouse12 multimedia event organized by Marko Kosnik in cooperation with X-OP project.

Tero Nauha wrote an excellent essay AVAMAA IN MOOSTE for SIRP cultural weekly.

Over the last few days while we were out for an excursion for the Autopuut project, the demolition men came and started to physically remove the walls of the soviet past that have marked the northern half of the house where the MoKS studios are located. Once the dust cleared we could see the place start to open up.

This event marks the beginning of the renovation process for the house. Over the next 3 years we hope to see all the available space in the house be cleaned up and converted to usable space. The old ovens will be replaces with new ones, windows, doors, floors replaced and utilities will be installed.

The goal is to have 3 more studios available (and possibly a sauna in the basement) for guests to use. While this sounds ideal it will still take a great deal of time and energy. Until then we will try to keep the existing programs running and word on developing future plans to keep up with the expansion process.

Esialgne fotoülevaade.

Väisasime Johniga konverentsi: International opportunities for the artists. Boston 27.-29.aprill 2007
Siinsiis raport:

Tänapäeva Kunstimaailm on pakitud üsna kivinenud võrgustikesse ja biennaalidesse. Selleks et olemasolevate võrgustike vahel uusi ühendusi luua kutsus Bostoni ühenaise organisatsioon, nimega Transcultural Exchange, Mary Shermani isikus koostöös Massachusets College of Arts´iga aprilli lõpus Boston MAsse erinevate kunstiprogrammide ja residentside esindajaid ning kuraatoreid üle maailma. Ühtekokku kogunes sellesse ülikoolidest tiinesse linna üle 50 erineva organisatsiooni esindaja Jaapanist Brasiiliani, Soomest- Austraaliani. Konverents oli demokraatlik, kaasates nii uusi kui vanu, alternatiivseid ja traditsioonilisi kunstiilma võimalusi ja tegijaid (n. Academie Schloss Solitude, BANFF Center (Kanada, tegev alates 1933 aastast), Fullbright´i ja Unesco programmid, CAMAC Prantsusmaalt, Platform Garanti Istanbulist, Taipei artists village, Instituto Sacatar Brasiiliast jne). Ühtekokku peaet taluvuse piiril kirjumirju kunstiprogrammide ja – võimaluste vikerkaar.
Tegemist oli USAs üsna senikuulmatu konverentsiga (osalejate ampluaa ja põhirõhk justnimelt USAst väljaspool toimuvale) ja nii oli huvi konverentsi vastu oodatult suur.
Kuulamishuvilised olid valdavalt USAst endast, osalejate iga varieerus, 25- 70 eluaastani.
Üheks konverentsi korraldamise motiiviks näis olevat konverentsi ühe kaaskorraldaja Massachusets College of Artsi idee saata tulevikus iga oma bakalaureuseastmes üliõpilane mõneks ajaks USAst väljapoole kogemusi omandama. Niiet neile oli konverents võimalus kaardistamiseks ja sidemete sõlmimiseks.
Konverents oli organiseeritud äärmiselt tihedalt, üheaegselt käis kuni 5 erinevat paneeldiskussiooni ja need kõik toimusid linna mööda laiali erinevate ülikoolide kampustes. Niiet end kuulama jagada oli üsna paras pähkel. Lisaks toimusid paneelide vahepeal veel tuurid MITis (Massachusets Institute of Technology), Massachusets College of Artsis ja kohalikus ICAs (Institute for Contemporary Arts), samaaegselt toimus ka kunstnike näost-näkku nõustamine ja nende portfooliote kritiseerimine konverentsil kõnelenute poolt. Lisaks kõigele toimus samal nädalavahetusel Bostonis veel teisigi konverentse (MITi korraldatav Creativity, ownership and collaboration in the digital age) ja festivale (Boston Cyberarts Festival) kuhu oleks tahtnud samuti pilku heita aga mida teha kui ka Bostoni ööpäevas on ikka vaid 24 tundi ☹.
Seega oli konverentsil füüsiline täiemahuline osalemine ilmavõimatu, niiet infot mujal toimunu kohta tuli lisaks hankida teiste osalejate ja kõnelejate käest õhtustel dineedel, Dineed tõid lisaks osalejaile kokku ka konverentsi patroonid, niiet ühel õhtul istusin lauas jaapani kuraatori, tai kunstniku, ekuadori-hiina päritolu Bostonis elava aktivistist kunstitudengi, prantsuse kuraatori, teist põlve ameeriklase aga Hiina päritolu hambaarsti ning India pankuri ja tema veetleva hindust tüdruksõbraga Londonist. Pankur ja hambaarst olid ühed ürituse paljduest patroonidest ja nende vahel kujunes pinev kõnelus, mis kogu laudkonna kaasas. India mees viskas hiinlase (praeguse ameeriklase) üle pidevalt varjatud hambaarstinalju. Mine tea kas asi oli selles, et üks oli olnud ürituse heldem sponsor kui teine või et üks oli ameerikas elanud kauem kui teine. Igatahes oli asi piisavalt naljakas ja internatsionaalselt absurdne, millele lisas vürtsi veel India mehe aktsent (vrd hindust Kwik-E-Marti kaupmees Apu Nahasapeemapetilon Simpsonites)

Konverentsi eesmärgiks näis olevat anda USA kunstnikele võimalikult suur ülevaade maailmas olevatest võimalustest., seda ideed kirjeldab juba konverentsi nimiga International opportunities for the artists (Rahvusvahelised võimalused kunstnikele). Kuigi paneelid olid jagatud teemagruppide kaupa näiteks nagu väikesed residentsid, interdistsiplinaarsed residentsid, teaduse, tehnoloogia ja kunsti sidumisele keskendunud residentsid, ülikoolide residentsid, noortele kunstnikele mõeldud residentsid, jne, jne. Tundus selline jagamine olevat üsnagi suvaline (MoKS paigutus interdistsiplinaarsete residentside paneeli aga oleks vabalt võinud olla ka väikeste residentside või siis koostööle suunatud residentside paneelis). Ühe konverentsil osalenud kunstniku sõnul valis tema paneele peamiselt selle järgi, mis maal üks või teine residents paiknes. Kunstnike resideerumise üheks oluliseks osaks on alati olnud eksootika, põnevus ja uued võimalused mida uus kultuuri ja looduskeskkond pakub.
Resideerumisvõimalustele lisaks tutvustati paneelidel kuidas üldse resideeruma kandideerida, kuidas portfooliot koostada. Oma võimalusi tutvustasid sellised programmid nagu DAAD, Fullbright, Siemens art program, Unesco, ArtsLink, Trust for mutual understanding, jne. Samuti räägiti ühel paneelil konkreetsete näidete varal sellest kuidas kunst seostub sotsiaalse ja majandusliku arenguga.
Igatahes maailm on võimalusi täis ja kui kellelgi on huvi või tahab muidu nõu küsida, kuhu resideeruma minna, kuidas minna ja kust rahasid hankida, siis olen lahkelt nõus kogutud infot jagama (eku_AT_moks.ee). Minu sõit sai võimalikuks tänu endiselt suuremeelsele KULKAle.