Pixelache Festival
Pixelache Helsinki 2021 Festival: Press Release

Press release: https://burn.pixelache.ac/press

 

Soon 20-year-old Pixelache Helsinki, a transdisciplinary platform for emerging art, design, research and activism, explores this summer collapse from psychological, social and environmental perspective as well as developing resilience. Week-long festival consists of localised FM radio, online streams, media art, lectures, haircuts, experimental home cooking, among many others.

Pixelache Helsinki Festival 2021 #Burn____, co-directed by artist-organiser Andrew Gryf Paterson and author Laura Gustafsson, takes place this year with limited access in selected spaces inside Oodi Central Library in Helsinki and outside the front canopy of Oodi, as well as online, from the 6th to the 13th of June 2021. The theme of the festival #Burn____, anticipated in late summer 2019, sets the context of the festival contributions, reflecting on mental health, social solidarity and struggle as well as on ecological crisis. 

The programme selected via open calls, direct invitations and partner contributions offers a wide range of local and international perspectives. Included are site-specific artworks, radio and audiovisual performances, online and offline workshops and presentations, with over 80 contributors participating in the festival. A highlight of the online offer - essayist Silvia Hosseini and Laura Gustafsson comment on the festival during the Radio Helsinki broadcast.

The festival starts on Sunday the 6th with a workshop teaching self-defence against technology, a performance for children, and a pop-up spa. From Wednesday to Sunday the programme includes evening live AV and choreographed performances, keynote presentations by Finnish bio-artist Mia Mäkelä and scientist-activist Alexandra Elbakyan, once referred to as ‘Science’s Pirate Queen’, streamed from Oodi’s Maijansali or presented online for the audience.

Co-director Laura Gustafsson writes about the festival:

“Themes of interfaces, metamorphoses and decomposition connect the projects while they also reach out towards recovering. In order to build a brighter future, the programme seeks to rearrange the somewhat dystopian elements of the present and to nurture the weeds sprouting from the cracks of our time. Dakar artist Babacar Traore’s work speaks of the traces we’ve left as a culture. Those traces are what we wish to examine during the coming festival – from abandoned fur farms to effects of climate crisis and tourism to lichen in the Sápmi region to the scars in one’s skin.”

After a year of excessive screen-based meetings, the festival re-adopts one of the oldest media forms at physical distance from another - radio - seems to be the idea of making a festival event with local and international contributors in consideration of mobility and gathering restrictions. With the established experience of hybrid radio, Pixelache brings a localised listening mix of audio works from two open calls, a live radio stream of festival events especially made or adapted for radio, emerging sound artists, podcasts, and interviews with festival artists and contributors. During the festival, the public can interact with a local FM radio broadcasting around Oodi. Bring Your Own Radio (BYOR) to listen, and if you like a blanket or picnic!


Live audiovisual / radio stream via http://burn.pixelache.ac

 

CONTRIBUTORS

Jairo Acosta Lara; Raine Aiava & Pii Anttila; Anastasia Artemeva & Arlene Tucker; Autoturk (Lena Kilina, Adam Sinykin And Sofya Chibisguleva); Eva Bakkeslett; Paul Beaudoin; Željko Bláce & working group; Benoit Bories; Orkida Braculla; Eirin Breivik; Yuri Bruscky; Alan Bulfin; Center For Genomic Gastronomy (Including Cathrine Kramer, Zack Denfeld; Emma Conley; Laura Allcorn); Charli Clark; Efrén Cruz Cortés & Suzanne Husky; Caitlin Davis Fisher; Krista Dintere, Maija Demitere, John Grzinich, Jacob Remin, Mantautas Krukauskas & student working group; Markéta Dolejšová & Annukka Svanda; Juan Duarte; Alexandra Elbakyan; Katrin Enni; Clio Flego For Iqea Group (Tactical Tech) with Oliver Keller & David Benqué; Фрукты Врукты (Frukty Vrukty); Boris Getaz; Ileana Gherghina; Karolina Ginman & Working Group; Terike Haapoja & Pauliina Feodoroff; Max Haarich; Margaretha Haughwout; Silvia Hosseini; Dasha Ilina; Elizabeth Johnston; Merle Karp a.k.a. Folded Visuals; Vera Kavaleuskaya; Owen Kelly & Sophie Hope; Sarah Alëna Korolëva; Martha Kicsiny; Iivo Korhonen; Tina Mariane Krogh Madsen; Labor Neunzehn; Albert Laine; Aistė Laisvė Viršulytė; Maximilian Latva; Veera Launonen; Yoojin Lee & Giuseppe Termine; Pihla Lehtinen; Jonna Lehto, Bráulio Bandeira, Moa Larsdotter Persson & Sofia Palillo; Diana Lelis; Tyler Liu; Eva Macali; Amelia Marzec; Max; Wojtek Mejor; Ranjit Menon; Peter Morgan; Anna Mu; Akash Muralidharan; Fahmi Mursyid; Kristo Muurimaa; Mia Mäkelä; Ida Nerbø; Dorota Orlof & Krisjanis Rijnieks; Leo Pahta; Ben Park & Brodie Campbell-park; Ananthakrishnan Pillai; Marcus Petz; Andrejs Poikāns; Aga Pokrywka; Anna Priedola; Leena Pukki; Eileen Rainer; Ashwin Rajan; Vishnu Vardhani Rajan; Tivon Rice; Mariana Salgado; Inga Salurand; Julian Scordato; Sumugan Sivanesan & Sophea Lerner; Mohamed Sleiman Labat & Pekka Niskanen; Juliana Irene Smith; Daniela Solis; Sylvain Souklaye; Swan Meat; Tuomo Tammenpää; Oili Tarvainen & Anna-liisa Valimaa; Áron Tihanyi; Anne Tolvanen; Babacar Traore; Ernest Truely; Justin Tyler Tate; Bengisu Uykusu; Arvid Van Der Rijt; Leda Vaneva; Taneli Viljanen; Spāre Vītola; Helen Västrik & Jaanika Arum; Christa Wall & Andreea Vladut; Valerie Wolf Gang; Eero Yli-vakkuri; Anne Yoncha With Daniel Townsend; Ola Zielińska; Milda Ziemane; Elza Zīverte; Reinis Žodžiks; Louise Ölund.


CONTACTS 

Festival co-directors: Andrew Gryf Paterson, andrew at pixelache.ac; Laura Gustafsson, laura at pixelache.ac
Festival producer: Steve Maher, steve at pixelache.ac
Production assistant: Mathilde Palenius, mathilde at pixelache.ac
Communications supervisor: Saša Nemec, sasa at pixelache.ac
Radio producer: Miia Laine and Sophea Lerner, pixelache2021 at openradio.in
Graphics team: Wojtek Mejor, wojtek at pixelache.ac; Evdokia Asseeva, evdokia at pixelache.ac 

 

FUNDING & SUPPORT

Pixelache Helsinki Festival 2021 is funded by:

Arts Promotion Centre Finland (TAIKE), Helsinki City - Culture and Leisure Department, Finnish-Estonian Culture Foundation, Asia-Europe Foundation.

Our contributors are funded by:

Arts Promotion Centre Finland (TAIKE), Kone Foundation, The Promotion Centre for Audiovisual Culture (AVEK), Goethe-Institute Finland, Italian Cultural Institute, Saastamoinen Foundation, Oskar Öflund Foundation, Nordic Culture Point Art & Culture programme, Colgate University (NY State), National Culture and Arts Foundation Taiwan, European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, and European Union’s Creative Europe programme.


Commercial sponsorships by:

Radio Helsinki
Kinos Rentals
Niinivirta Transport

Local partners and associations:

Helsinki City’s Oodi Central Library
Bioart Society
M-Cult
Valmed ry
Aalto FabLab
ÄÄNIAALTO
DADA ry Student Organisation of Aalto Media Lab

International partners and associations:

EKA - Estonian Art Academy (Estonia)
Dimora OZ (Italy)
Karachi Biennale Trust (Pakistan)
GEM (Australia)
Asia-Europe Foundation
ASTE Art Science Technology Education (Latvia)
Xarxa de Ràdios Comunitàries de Barcelona (Catalonia)

Audio, media and radio partnerships:

{openradio}
Korppiradio
M-Cult
Radio Helsinki
Aavistus Festival
Enostone Kustannus Elektron platform (Estonia)
P-Node (France)
Ūmėdė X-disciplinary Festival (Lithuania)

Accommodation by:

Architectural Democracy

Other partners:

Volunteer forces through the Job’d platform (Helsinki),funded by Helsinki City.


ABOUT PIXELACHE

Pixelache is a Transdisciplinary Platform for Emerging Art, Design, Research and Activism, organised by the non-profit association Piknik Frequency ry. They produce a formerly-annual, now bi-annual festival in Helsinki, as well as participatory art-science and technology productions, public events, educational programmes, residencies and other activities. Our non-profit association has operated since 2002, also named Pikseliähky. Between 2021-2022, Pixelache will reach its 20th year anniversary, and Pixelache Helsinki  Festival is currently one of the longest-running cultural festivals in Northern Europe and the Baltic Sea region, that continues to promote emergent inter- and trans-disciplinary practices and thinking between art, design, technology, research and activism. 


ABOUT OODI LIBRARY

Helsinki Central Library Oodi is a living meeting place at Kansalaistori square, right at the heart of Helsinki. It is one of 37 branches of Helsinki City Library and part of the Helmet library network. Oodi complements the cultural and media hub formed by Helsinki Music Centre, Finlandia Hall, Sanoma House and the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma. Oodi is a non-commercial, urban public space that is open to all, right opposite the Parliament Building.

http://oodihelsinki.fi