Gem in Kamppi

I love these moments. When you think you know your city to the last stoney and then you bump into something quite amazing. It kind of feels embarrassing to make this discovery only now but better late than never: I visited Amos Anderson´s Art Museum for the first time in my life today.

I went in due to the Riiko Sakkinen and Jani Leinonen exhibition. I was not expecting much but wanted to base my opinion - some people would say for a change - on real experience. Well, I was not blown away. The exhibition kind of demonstrates how difficult it is to shock with anything anymore. I felt I had seen this stuff before.

But taking the lift upstairs to the 5th floor made my day. Amos Anderson has made a deal with a set of corporate collections and in this manner able to bring into daylight wonderful works of artists like Magnus Enckell and Helene Schjerfbeck, which normally only decorate a company office or are locked in a safe. Of course most of the exhibition was kind of boring for anyone who has visited Ateneum but in the middle of it all were the subtle and delicate portraits of Helene Schjerfbeck and the strikingly colourfully radical Enckells of boys on a beach. Amos Anderson deserves recognition for making these works available for us all. If you ask me, Enckell and Schjerfbeck are some of the best art this little country has to offer.

A great invention for Amos Anderson is also reserving the red brick attic for contemporary art. Maiju Salmenkivi´s Pasila painting is such an explosion of colour that it made me return for a second glance. Tiina Heiska´s somehow photographic bedroom scene painting is simultaneously sad and sensual. Amos Anderson´s Art Museum shows that next to publicly funded art, this country needs also philantrophists with taste.

Moving Boxes, Moving On

moving boxes
Originally uploaded by movingcompanies

On Saturday it finally started feeling real. I was cycling home from Westerpark with 10 folded cardboard moving boxes. In less than two weeks they all should be filled. My Dad and brother will be arriving in two weekends from now, we pile them all into the van and head back to Travemunde for a 26-hour ferry trip to Helsinki. Home for Christmas.

I am glad that the move takes this form. Schiphol airport for me is a place that means short trips abroad. I know how it functions and it does not link to anything permanent. The car ride and the ferry make it concrete: time to move on, time for a change and most sadly, time to leave.

It is not yet clear what my days will be filled with from January onwards. I have sent papers for a company to the authorities and made some contacts but that is where we are. I have decided to allow myself to take some time to figure out what is the next step, what I want to do and what gives me the kicks. It is also essential to reserve time for the primary reason for packing these boxes: building a joint home and being closer to me family and friends.

With the risk of sounding to obamaesque, change feels good. Four years in one organisation is a long time. Having now the possibility to work for myself and focus on content generates a lot of excitement. After I made this decision to jump and start something new, I have not regretted it for a moment. I feel it is made for the right reason: not for the sake of leaving something but for the sake of wanting something.

Tradition of Elite

Vappu eve
Originally uploaded by Brent_Thorkelson

“What students today, the nation tomorrow.” The old promise of the student community was mentioned several times yesterday evening as the Student Union of the University of Helsinki HYY celebrated its 140th birthday. Fancy party indeed with 350 people in evening dresses and frocks.

This organization has been fundamental for our small nation in the North. It was the students of this very union who sang the national anthem for the first time when Finland was still under the Russian rule. It was also this very student union, which acted as the key stage in the cultural revolution of the late 1960s. 20 years ago HYY was one of the founders of Pakolaisapu, a legal counseling organization for refugees. This role taken by students is in no way unique for Finland – in the US students played a fundamental role in shaping the civil rights or anti-Viet Nam agenda.

It has been fours year since I attended these annual celebrations. This community has been crucial in shaping who I am now and how I carry myself to the future. It is not “just” some volunteering, it is a school of citizenship. I feel very strongly about its well being, at the same time recognizing that decisions are now made by people significantly younger than I am. And rightly so.

These parties provide us a peak into the mindset of their time. Selection of speakers and the songs being sung tell about the priorities and concerns.

This hope of acting as a beacon is of course an issue that the union needs to think of as part of its strategy in keeping students active in it: how much is the student union up to its time and promise of leadership? How does it keep itself fresh and alert? How is the student union showing the way of tomorrow for its nation? Which traditions are worth preserving and which are ones we have been doing for too long just out of a habit?

Relating to this challenge, I found myself thinking of the following yesterday evening: Singing is a great student tradition. But why students would sing in year 2008 mostly about boozing and even more troubling:”More land for Finland, more Finland on Earth, Let´s March to Carelia, Carelia!”

Few Steps Away From The Left

Helsinki harbor
Originally uploaded by dvdnvrtl

So the local elections are done in Finland. It was fantastic to see many of my friends getting through. They all deserve it. Congratulations to Elina, Laura K, Mari, Laura R, Ville and Nanna. Helsinki seems to be in good hands.

The centre-right party National Coalition (Kokoomus) is the winner of the elections being for the first time in Finland´s history the biggest party on the municipal level nation-wide. They even managed to pass the Social Democrats in Vantaa, a traditionally strongly leftish city next to Helsinki. Kokoomus is growing its alliance amongst Finns, which I hope means moving even more strongly towards liberalism also socially.

The Greens beat the Social Democrats with clear numbers in Helsinki and became only for the second time in history the second biggest party of the capital. I hope this means more investments in services, in public transport and urban planning. Traffic policy is the big issue where Kokoomus and the Greens will most likely be bolstering their muscles against each other in the course of the next four years.

Nationally the biggest winner of the elections is the populist True Finns growing their seat number nationally with 336 seats. They have clearly marked their place as a serious contestant for the votes of the working class and the unemployed with a xenophobic message. This truly worries me even if one could seek for some consolation from the fact that the rise of the populist right is a pan-European phenomenon. I understand the fear of insecurity that the True Finns tap into but in times like these we really see what kind of a wonderful safety net the EU and the euro are for us. The responsibility of the other parties is not to ignore the True Finns but to take them on their message and reveal the weakness of their rhetoric. It is however yet difficult to make any prognosis what their support will result to apart from offensive language.

The Social Democrats came down in the elections with rocket speed. Their populism did not work in this economic situation with factories being closed down across the country. I feel most Finns understand that it is time to save, not to demand more for free. Only in Helsinki they lost nearly 12.000 votes mostly going to the Greens and True Finns. The fall especially in Helsinki was harder than anyone expected. It only continues the long list of evidence on the crisis of European Left. Chairperson Urpilainen´s strategy of claiming her party to be part of the centre can be questioned - at least the voters were not energised by it. Taking the position of the conservative and stubborn defender of the Nordic welfare state (which they claim to be their creation) is not a very aspirational campaign message.

In other parts of the country the results also show difficulties for the Centre Party, traditionally the biggest party on local level and also in the last parliament elections. The success of Kokoomus is mostly due to the problems of the Centre Party. The position of Prime Minister Vanhanen as the party leader is significantly weakened for instance by the poor results in Lapland - Centre Party lost there 8 % of their votes from 2004 meaning over 6 000 votes. It is interesting to see how the price of being in government is only paid in these elections by the Centre Party.

Problem With Youth

View to Kamppi, shopping center in Helsinki Finland
Originally uploaded by reiskas

I remember when I was a teenager and we took the bus to Helsinki, we did not hang out in the cute little designer shops - we went to the shopping mall Forum and to the department store Stockmann. At that time I thought Helsinki consisted of the triangle Railway Station - Stockmann - Bus Station. And to be very honest, I was quite content.

Two years ago a gigantic mall called Kamppi was opened in the centre of Helsinki and today - as it would be a grand surprise - the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper writes about the way the teenagers have claimed it their space. They write about how these 13-17-year-olds hang out there every day. According to the article, teenagers come even from the neighbouring towns and municipalities to hang out.

The interviews with the adults really got me annoyed. You found shop owners and real estate maintenance people complaining that these teenagers are using this semipublic space. In the comments on the website under the article someone expressed their concern for the fact that teenagers hang out in a commercial space.However, in the pictures you saw not hoodlums but happy young people. The article described how the teenagers hug and high-five each other and how there seems to be a truly communal feeling.

These views by the adults are concerns that I hear in my work producing StrangerFestival often: public officials are extremely concerned that young people "don't realise" that there are so many services and places provided for them. That they just go and make their own things - a way of working boosted by the Internet.

I find myself often thinking that maybe the problem is that they actually do realise what is on offer but they do prefer spaces where no one tells them what they should be doing. Let's face it, It is guite human actually: none of us really enjoy being pushed around.

Most youth cultures have some sort of rebellion and DIY (Do It Yourself) mentality written into them. This seems very difficult for the well-meaning adults to handle who would rather wish to monitor and control the teenagers. The Kamppi shopping mall case reminds me of the fuss around the Main Post Office and Museum of Contemporary Art KIASMA when a lot of babyboomers and pensioners expressed their great concerns that young skateboarders were using the squares around these buildings for their own use and "even skateboarding around the statue of our national hero Mannerheim". My head is about to explode in discussions like this: the same people who brand teenagers are passive and disinterested, are actually dissing every phenomena where young people are entrepeneurial, visible and creative.

And what are you trying to say?

Magyar Televizio
Originally uploaded by amsterboy

Last year the Finnish Business and Policy Council EVA published a fascinating report on the changes of corporate architecture. The pamphlet (in English) compared the messages companies are sending with their headquarters built in the beginning of the 20th century and now.

The most powerful comparison in the document was the comparison between the old headquarters of the Helsinki telephone company HPY (now Elisa) and the headquarters of Nokia (new). When HPY’s headquarter was a big, slightly gothic granite monolith communicating ”we are here to stay”, Nokia’s glass complex communicates ”we are dynamic, open and transparent”. The irony of this all was that in the midst of its economic problems Elisa sold its headquarters to a new media company.

Why am I ranting about this? Because I am currently in Budapest – a mixture of romantic old sights and gigantic Tesco hypermarkets. At the same time Budapest is perfect for that getaway weekend of the good old times and for full-blown ”you can buy a washing machine at 3 a.m. if you want” capitalism.

Today I had a meeting at MTV, the Hungarian national television. The organisers of my previous meeting at British Council drew me a map. They said:”It is a massive building, you cannot miss it.”

Well, I could. The building in the picture is MTV headquarters. It is a colossal castle that in my mind looks more like a presidential palace or a parliament than a place where you make TV programmes. I was going around and around the square searching for a media house, passing the castle a few times. Finally asking a local helped. She looked me like I was retarded. I could see what she was thinking:”Are you stupid or what? It is the biggest building on this square right behind you.”

Diversity is not only a question of understanding, colourful hand dolls and living together. It is also realising that something natural to us can be perfectly alien to someone else.