pARTir – Creating a Cultural Roadmap Towards Responsible International Mobility

pARTir is a new collaborative project between the Finnish Cultural and Academic Institutes (SKTI) and ten Finnish cultural institutes operating abroad. The project aims to promote the sustainable and long-term internationalisation of Finnish art.

Scheduled to run until 2025, the project promotes cross-cultural exchange and facilitates the international mobility of artists through the production of approximately 30 sustainably created performances, exhibitions, and other artworks. These works are commissioned and developed in collaboration with various international art organisations. The programme is designed to strengthen and establish ecologically and socially sustainable practices for international mobility, cultural export, and exchange.

The project operates through a network model, with the Finnish Cultural and Academic Institutes umbrella organization (SKTI) serving as the main coordinator in Helsinki. The ten Finnish cultural institutes involved collaborate with intermediary cultural organisations in their respective host countries.

Participating in the project are the Finnish Cultural and Academic Institutes: FinnAgora – The Finnish Institute in Hungary, The Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux, The Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland, the Finnish Institute in Japan, The Finnish Institute in Madrid, the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York, The Finnish-Norwegian Cultural Institute FINNO, Institut finlandais – the Finnish Institute in France, Finnland-Institut – the Finnish Institute in Germany, and the Finnish Institute in Estonia.

The Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture awarded a special grant of €726,000 to the pARTir project as part of the European Union’s cultural and creative industries structural support (Rescue and Recovery Facility RRF) in the fall of 2023. The RRF is one of the programmes under the European Union’s Next Generation EU recovery instrument.

 

2024 Programme

A Black woman in colourful clothing sticks out her tongue while standing next to a tower of speakers, on top of which she holds her left hand. A Black man with his mouth wide open stands on the other side of the tower of speakers, with his right hand placed on the speakers. He is dressed in yellow and black.

ONE DROP performed at Take Me Somewhere 2023, Photo by Tiu Makkonen.

Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux – Brussels

ONE DROP continues Sonya Lindfors‘ series of works dealing with power, representation, and Black body politics. This is the second time Lindfors presents at Beursschouwburg in Brussels, following ‘Cosmic Latte’ in 2019. The work’s title refers to two frameworks: the “one drop” rhythm, a reggae-style drum beat, and the “one drop rule” of the Race Separation Act in the United States from the early 1900s. According to this rule, a single drop of “Black blood” made a person “Black” despite their appearance. Through these starting points, the work interrogates the ghosts of the Western stage and its entanglements with capitalism, coloniality, and modernity.

The dance performance takes place Friday, 18.10.2024 followed by a talk and Saturday, 19.10.2024 at Beursschouwburg in Brussels, Belgium.

Discover more about ONE DROP and get your tickets. 

 

Our pARTir Partners

Institut finlandais – Paris

At the end of May, the Ensemble ! Block Party festival in Paris features the performance Something Like This by choreographer Sonya Lindfors and a street dance event led by Akim Bakhtaoui, Linda Ilves, Ramona Panula, and Sophia Wekesa.

 

Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland – London

The Vapaa Collective (Iines Karkulahti, Meri Wiikinkoski, and Charlotte Nyholm) present their series Architectural Acts of Care, as part of this year’s London Festival of Architecture.

 

Finnish Cultural Institute in New York

After London, the Architectural Acts of Care series will continue to New York in the fall for the Archtober festival, in collaboration with the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York.

 

Finnish Institute in Estonia – Tartu

In Estonia, the pARTir journey begins with the CPPM Manifestal theatre and performance festival at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, featuring Katia Skylar‘s work Mundane.Magic. In July, the European Capital of Culture Tartu will host Elina Brotherus‘s residency at the Villa Tammekann, designed by Alvar Aalto.

 

“By focusing on collaboration with local partners of the institutes as well as with artists and organizations operating in Finland, we aim for a more impactful cultural export with long-lasting effects compared to one-off events. The project also designs and experiments with various methods of mentoring and networking, aimed at enabling deeper and ongoing dialogues. This approach is also reflected in the internal cooperation and development within the institute network, for which large projects like pARTir provide a special opportunity,” shares Asta Teräväinen, the project manager of pARTir.

 

Sustainability

 

Learn more about sustainability at the institutes in a recent interview featured on vihreataide.fi. Annu Webb (SKTI), the network specialist and coordinator of sustainability, Director Laura Boxberg from the Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux, Monica Gathuo (Finnish Cultural Institute in New York) the head producer of the Together Again project 2022–2023, and Iiris Tarvonen, the producer of the Finnish-Norwegian Cultural Institute answer questions about environmental and social sustainability work of the institutes.

 

Visit the pARTir website to learn more about the project. 

Next Generation EU logo and pARTir logo

 

Sonya Lindfors returns to Beursschouwburg with ONE DROP

Sonya Lindfors returns to Beursschouwburg with ONE DROP

Confronting the echoes of the ‘one drop’ rhythm and the ‘one drop rule’ with power, anti-racist love and resistance, Sonya Lindfors’ dance performance ‘One Drop’ comes to Beursschouwburg, 18 & 19 October 2024.