PROPOSED EXHIBITION FOR 2017
VAIVAISKUOT + ANTTI OJALA: Paupers, Paintings and Puppets
Seeking $25,000 for shipping, installation, artistic and administrative fees and exhibit material.
NAMING RIGHTS AND LOGO PLACEMENT AVAILABLE FOR CORPORATE AND INDIVIDUAL FUNDERS.
CONTACT: Park Cofield, Project Manager - SISUisintheHeart@gmail.com
NAMING RIGHTS AND LOGO PLACEMENT AVAILABLE FOR CORPORATE AND INDIVIDUAL FUNDERS.
CONTACT: Park Cofield, Project Manager - SISUisintheHeart@gmail.com
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Rationale:
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Project Team:
Curator – Esa Honkimaki, Exec. Director, Cultural Centre Vanha Paukku (Lapua)
President of the Society to Save the Wooden Paupers - Seppo Seitsalo (Helsinki)
Pauper Statue Advisor – Kati Andrianov, scholar (Viiala)
Project Management - Park Cofield (Los Angeles)
Artists:
Paupers – Various Finnish Artists (1869 – present)
Paintings – Antti Ojala (Helsinki)
Puppets – Park Cofield (Los Angeles)
Additional Photography – Aki Paavola (Helsinki)
Content/Quantity:
3 pauper statues
5 large paintings
10 small paintings
2-4 puppet figures
Photographs, drawings, sketches
Location:
Time Frame:
Supplementary Activities:
Curator – Esa Honkimaki, Exec. Director, Cultural Centre Vanha Paukku (Lapua)
President of the Society to Save the Wooden Paupers - Seppo Seitsalo (Helsinki)
Pauper Statue Advisor – Kati Andrianov, scholar (Viiala)
Project Management - Park Cofield (Los Angeles)
Artists:
Paupers – Various Finnish Artists (1869 – present)
Paintings – Antti Ojala (Helsinki)
Puppets – Park Cofield (Los Angeles)
Additional Photography – Aki Paavola (Helsinki)
Content/Quantity:
3 pauper statues
5 large paintings
10 small paintings
2-4 puppet figures
Photographs, drawings, sketches
Location:
- 1 primary city, with potential for multi-city tour (Washington DC, Los Angeles, New York, Minneapolis, Seattle.)
- Intended for gallery space or cultural institution or festival
Time Frame:
- Curation and preparation – 6 months to 1 year
- Travel time with customs clearance is 14 days from Lapua to New York City
Supplementary Activities:
- Screenings of in-progress documentaries and pauper statue films
- Performance segments from SISU is in the Heart (with puppets)
- Puppetry workshops for teens/adults
- Design your own paper pauper puppet for children
- Lectures by visiting scholars
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Finnish “pauper statues” or vaivaisukot, are carved wooden human figures that serve as collection boxes outside of rural churches in Finland dating back to 1808-09. The tradition of paupers appears to be a unique phenomenon on an international scale, in that they do not appear to exist anywhere other than Finland. These pioneers of social welfare often stand under an ornamental shelter and can be accompanied with an inscription, such as: “He who has pity on the poor, lends to the Lord.” Most of the paupers are from the 19th century, and many of them were modeled after veterans of the Finnish Winter War. There are altogether around 180 known wooden paupers in Finland, of which 145 still remain. Some have disappeared in the course of time, some have gradually become worse for wear and been discarded. Many have been attacked in hopes of loot. Nonetheless, a large number of paupers still remain in service, collecting money for church social and mission work. Wooden paupers are still made on occasion, and a few parishes have commissioned local craftsmen to make younger paupers join the crew.
PROJECT PARTNERS
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ANTTI OJALA is prolific expressionist painter who was born in Lappajärvi, Finland in 1935. He has a degree from the School of Industrial Arts in Helsinki. His paintings have been exhibited in solo and group shows across Finland, Italy, Sweden, Bulgaria, and other places in Europe since 1965. His work can be found in the permenant collections of over 40 insitutions include Kiasma Musuem of Contemporary Art, Oulu Art Musuem, State of Finland, Finnish Parliament, the city councils of Helsinki, Lapua, Vantaa, Jyväskylä, Kuopio and Seinäjoki, art collections of multiple Finnish banks, publishing houses, and foundations in Finland. Ojala is the recipient of 1889 Vantaa award and ten years later received recognition from the Finnish Art Association. In 2007, Ojala started a collaboration with the Lapua Art Museum as part of an exhibit of artists who had grown up Lapua but where living elsewhere. The exhibit was titled ”Roots” and was followed by a second visit in 2008 for an exhibition titled ”Courtyard” after one of his pieces. Since then the musuem has continuned to acquire Ojala’s work for their collection in order to perserve Ojala’s life work.
Ojala’s work is often praised for intergrating different traditions and retaining local familarity. In addition to traditional portriats and landscapes he has, throughout his life, painted images of beggar poor boxes, generally made of wood (human figures that served as collections boxes outside of rual churches in Finland dating back to the 1808-09 wars). Ojala has promoted a dialouge about this Finnish folk tradition and honored his childhood by including it in his work and therefore into a modern context. His travels and residences abroad have resulted in a deepened historical demension in his works, an enhanced color palatte and a mastery of art history. His work is defined by an odd transformation that occures in his visual narratives—objects such as Afrian masks, Renaissance angels and beggar states collide and start to entwine and often dance. There is rarely the need to construct complicated frameworks of interpretation. His painting often draw on childhood memories and local atmospheres. (Taken in part from the essay ”From the Soil of Ketola, From the Clay of Siena” by art critic, Otso Kantokorpi and ”From the Roots to the Courtyard and Back” by Lapua Cultrual Director, Esa Honkimäki)
Most recently, much of Ojala’s work was exhibitied in Lapua at the Lapua Art Musuem. The exhibit featured over fifty paintings and prints of various beggar statues, portriats, and prints telling the story of his connection to Lapua and the surrounding land. Across the country in Kerimäki, some of Ojala’s paintings also appeared along side forty two pauper statues in the largest wooden church in the world.
Today, Ojala continues his work in Helsinki, Finland where he lives as part of Lallukka, a community of other painters, performers, musicians, and sculptors. In 2015, he will collaborate with Park Cofield on the asethetic design of puppets inspired by wooden paupers. The figures will be sculpted and painted in the likeness of his grandfather and Cofield’s great-grandfather for a theatrical performance titled SISU is in the Heart.
Read and see more at: http://www.kuvataiteilijamatrikkeli.fi/fi/taiteilijat/1035
Ojala’s work is often praised for intergrating different traditions and retaining local familarity. In addition to traditional portriats and landscapes he has, throughout his life, painted images of beggar poor boxes, generally made of wood (human figures that served as collections boxes outside of rual churches in Finland dating back to the 1808-09 wars). Ojala has promoted a dialouge about this Finnish folk tradition and honored his childhood by including it in his work and therefore into a modern context. His travels and residences abroad have resulted in a deepened historical demension in his works, an enhanced color palatte and a mastery of art history. His work is defined by an odd transformation that occures in his visual narratives—objects such as Afrian masks, Renaissance angels and beggar states collide and start to entwine and often dance. There is rarely the need to construct complicated frameworks of interpretation. His painting often draw on childhood memories and local atmospheres. (Taken in part from the essay ”From the Soil of Ketola, From the Clay of Siena” by art critic, Otso Kantokorpi and ”From the Roots to the Courtyard and Back” by Lapua Cultrual Director, Esa Honkimäki)
Most recently, much of Ojala’s work was exhibitied in Lapua at the Lapua Art Musuem. The exhibit featured over fifty paintings and prints of various beggar statues, portriats, and prints telling the story of his connection to Lapua and the surrounding land. Across the country in Kerimäki, some of Ojala’s paintings also appeared along side forty two pauper statues in the largest wooden church in the world.
Today, Ojala continues his work in Helsinki, Finland where he lives as part of Lallukka, a community of other painters, performers, musicians, and sculptors. In 2015, he will collaborate with Park Cofield on the asethetic design of puppets inspired by wooden paupers. The figures will be sculpted and painted in the likeness of his grandfather and Cofield’s great-grandfather for a theatrical performance titled SISU is in the Heart.
Read and see more at: http://www.kuvataiteilijamatrikkeli.fi/fi/taiteilijat/1035
