Date: October 30, 18:00
Place: Manilla Factory (Vanha Viinatehdas), Itäinen Rantakatu 64 B, Turku, Finland
Registration: https://forms.gle/yLdz1M1WX5bJwUwN9 

On October 30, the School of Political Performance × New Performance Turku residency will conclude with Performance & Pizza, a public presentation at Manilla Factory (Vanha Viinatehdas) in Turku. Over the course of three weeks, artists from Ukraine and Finland have lived, worked, experimented and developed ideas together, exploring performance as a space for dialogue, collective practice and reflection on contemporary political and social realities.

On October 30 at 18:00, the artists will come together for Performance & Pizza, the public presentation of the results of the School of Political Performance × New Performance Turku project. The event will present the outcomes, artistic processes, and practices developed during the three-week residency at Manilla Factory. The evening will offer an opportunity to encounter the work and processes that have emerged through collective practice and to meet the artists and curators involved in the project.

The residency brings together eight artistic practices from Ukraine and Finland: Oleksandr Halishchuk (Ukraine), Katri Kainulainen and Maximilian Latva (Finland), Tetiana Kornieieva (Ukraine), Maria Kulikovska (Ukraine), Moe Mustafa (Finland), Stanislava Ovchynnikova (Ukraine), Onur Tayranoglu (Finland), AntiGonna (Ukraine).

During the residency, the participants have combined individual and collective artistic work with workshops, mentoring sessions, curatorial conversations and visits to cultural institutions and artistic communities in and around Turku.

Throughout the three weeks, the artists have taken part in mentoring sessions with performance artist and curator Leena Kela, workshops and discussions with curator Farbod Fakharzadeh, and sessions with curator and researcher Satu Herrala, whose contribution focuses on grounding, witnessing, embodied curating and the support structures surrounding artistic practice. The final stage of the residency includes a session with curator Giovanna Esposito Yussif, whose practice engages with nondominant perspectives, collective inquiry, political imagination and alternative institutional practices.

Rather than following a traditional educational model, the residency creates a shared environment for artistic exchange in which knowledge emerges through practice, conversation, experimentation and collaboration. Across the programme, the participants address questions of body and agency, visibility and representation, borders and belonging, institutional structures, political imagination, collective work and the conditions in which artistic practices are created and sustained.

The curatorial framework of the project is developed by Leena Kela (New Performance Turku) and Maria Kulikovska (School of Political Performance), together with invited curators Giovanna Esposito Yussif and Satu Herrala, and curator Farbod Fakharzadeh (Titanik / Titanik AiR), all based in Finland.

About

School of Political Performance (SPP) is a free art movement founded by Maria Kulikovska and registered in Kyiv as an NGO since 2017. SPP works through performances, actions, exhibitions, non-violent artistic gestures, and hybrid, transdisciplinary, and experimental forms of visual art. Among the artist’s early actions from which the School’s method emerged are 254 — an unauthorised performance at the Hermitage during the opening of the first public day of Manifesta 10; participation in #onvacation (2015) in the Russian-occupied pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale, organised by the IZOLYATSIA contemporary art centre; White (2015) — washing the flag of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in the Moscow River; Flowers of Democracy (2015) — casts of the vulvas of women and activists, placed in public spaces, primarily in locations where architecture speaks in a phallic or patriarchal language; and Crimea Raft: Parliament of All Displaced Persons — a social sculpture and performance on an inflatable rescue raft.

Garage33, Gallery-Shelter is an independent space in Kyiv and the home of the School of Political Performance. Together with SPP, it is a project of Studio-Home Maria Kulikovska (Studio Maria Kulikovska).

New Performance Turku Biennale is an international performance art platform based in Turku, Finland, bringing together artists, curators, and local and international communities. The platform develops new forms of producing and presenting performance, supports artists through residencies and long-term collaborations, and creates space for dialogue between art and diverse audiences. Its work is grounded in principles of accessibility, inclusivity, and social, environmental, and economic sustainability.

Support

The School of Political Performance × New Performance Turku project is implemented within the framework of the ZMINA: Resilience project, with the support of the IZOLYATSIA Foundation (Ukraine) and Malý Berlín (Slovakia), with the participation of the Trans Europe Halles network (Sweden), and co-funded by the European Union’s Creative Europe Programme.

Co-funded by the European Union. The views and opinions expressed in this material are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. 

New Performance Turku is supported by the City of Turku, Regional Dance Centre of Western Finland and Foundation Pro Manilla.