Economy Sessions – For the Love and Fear of Welfare
Skills of Economy Sessions is a series of events organised in the context of the Skills of Economy project in Helsinki during autumn 2015 and spring 2016. Events focuses on ways of building new economic and social agencies through political, curatorial and theoretical discourses, a video programme as well as artistic and performative interventions at three different theatre contexts.
The second session For the Love and Fear of Welfare is organised in collaboration with Baltic Circle Festival. It looks into the situation of the late welfare state and the critical and productive possibilities of artists in this specific economic, social and political situation. In the political rhetorics, the welfare state is constantly defended by both politicians who favour austerity politics and politicians that are against it, only the arguments are different. The welfare state in Finland has offered artists possibilities to understand their work as an autonomous practice. What is the critical role of the artist and the curator when the arts are instrumentalised through welfare management? Could the welfare state and its ideals of equality and common interests of all the social classes still be the background for progressive artistic and curatorial practices? Can artistic, curatorial and institutional practices offer models for the welfare state to overcome its problematic aspects of nation state, excluding of others and believing in infinite economic growth?
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POSTE RESTANTE issues: BALTIC
BALTIC is a social choreography based on the idea of the welfare state, mediated through our freshly established currency BALTIC.
Without risking budget stability and solid finances, POSTE RESTANTE promise to cater for everyone’s basics needs: warmth, shelter, toilets and coffee. Whatever surplus is yours to spend in the various enterprises operating in BALTIC – invited speakers, exotic goods, or why not a place in the spotlight for yourself?
In return we expect participants to invest faith and compliance in the BALTIC and to uphold a high tax morale. BALTIC creates an economic environment that gives all participants the opportunity to shape their own experience and to strike a balance between freedom and security.
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Participants are researcher Päivi Uljas (FIN), activist and writer Maryan Abdulkarim (FIN), curators Anders Kreuger (SWE) and Katerina Tselou (GRE) philosopher Teppo Eskelinen (FIN), as well as artists Ane Hjort Guttu (NOR) and Nestori Syrjälä (FIN) and artist collective Poste Restante (SWE).
Supported by: Finish Cultural Foundation, Palkansaajasäätiö, Oskar Öflund Stiftelse, Swedish Art Grants Comitee and Frame Visual Art Finland