SaunaLab

 What is talked about in the sauna? What songs are sung and what stories are told?

The city art festival arranged by the Living Room Art Society will present various works of art which are related to the sauna, bathing and the process of renewal. The works of art will be displayed during the City Art Festival Living Room 306,4 m2 taking place in the beginning of June 2011. Some of the art works are on display during the whole summer.

In the Sauna talk series there are five art works.
 

Songs from the Pier
Vilja-Tuulia Huotarinen & Satu Tuittila

Poetry and dance
 
Songs from the Pier is a combination of sauna poetry, modern dance and improvisation. It will be performed on a pier at the beach in Uittamo, and on another one by the sauna in the Saaronniemi area of Ruissalo. The audience may make requests for poems! The performance lasts 45 minutes.  

The artists:

Satu Tuittila is a freelance dancer working in and around Turku. She has been working as an artist for over two decades, and has a special interest in improvisation and combining different forms of art.

The poetry of Vilja-Tuulia Huotarinen has received numerous prizes. She has been collaborating with Satu Tuittila for nearly five years, touring libraries and events related to poetry or modern dance, developing the collaboration of dance and poetry.

 With a Damp Sponge
Laura Kärki

An installation

Kostealla sienellä,
karhealla puolella,
vaivasin ihoani liasta eroon
                            -Laura Kärki, 2003

With a Damp Sponge is based on a small poem that was written in a hurry. Sometimes, if you're lonely enough, a warm shower and a sponge may represent a form of intimacy; in the installation, synthetic sponges, water and the act of washing become a substitute for the human touch. An audioscape consisting of different sounds of water is an important part of the piece.

The installation is linked to Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, presented in the shape of a pyramid. The only need in the piece is the need for the sense of touch to be stimulated. There is too little time for others and touches in our busy lives.

The artist:                
In her work, Laura Kärki combines poetry and sculpture with different soundscapes; for a few years already, she has used her art to explore the ways in which living in a state of hurry may affect people and their immediate surroundings.

Stories from Sauna Seats
Suvi Nurmi

An installation

The piece will consist of approximately a hundred paper seatcovers, each of them holding a short text, including quotations from films and books with scenes in saunas, as well as sauna-related proverbs, traditional Finnish poetry and maybe even bits of real conversations overheard by the artist in a sauna. Together they form a jungle of sauna stories, a cheerful combination of private and common, or fiction and reality. It will be installed the whole summer in the city library of Turku.

The artist:
Keywords to the art of Suvi Nurmi include site-specificity, dialogue and texts. Many of her works are text installations set in public spaces, or communal poetry workshops. Nurmi will graduate from the department of Time and Space Arts in the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 2011.


Saunamantra

A musical performance

Saunamantra is a visual audio piece built around a percussion instrument made of timber. The web of sound woven by the instrument is completed by musicians improvising, basing their music on old Finnish sauna songs and the special musical scale used by the instrument; also the sounds created by the environment are important to the piece.

Saunamantra is about the calming and cleansing effect of the sauna, explored through performance and ritual. How does the sauna affect people? Is it possible to create a similar effect through sounds and music?

Artists
The core group behind the performance: Otto Eskelinen and Konsta Eskelinen
The timber instrument built by Paavo Eskelinen

Performers:
Konsta Eskelinen, the violin
Otto Eskelinen, the alto saxophone
Kusti Vuorinen, the bells, the singing bowls, the pocket trumpet
Paavo Eskelinen, timber
Erkki Joutseno, timber
Pentti Dassum, timber


The Tar Painting
Timo Kokko

Visual arts/performance

The piece will be painted with tar on a wooden board, in the middle of the day, in front of an audience. The situation becomes a kind of performance, where the artist and the work are exposed to the audience's reactions and comments, positive and negative alike. In Finland, tar is associated with lakeside saunas, rituals, protection, traditional healing, and sometimes even disgrace. The material is also a reminder of the history of Turku, as the town used to be an important centre of tar trade. The subject of the painting will be the surrounding urban environment, while the materials used in the piece act as a link to the theme of the festival.

The artist:
The artist Timo Kokko, born in Kuopio but currently residing in Helsinki, works in constantly changing ways – new ideas bring about new styles and forms. In exhibitions his objective is to create site-specific art: his works create a dialogue with the surrounding architecture, and sometimes they only exist for the duration of the exhibition. The signs of the artistic process are often visible in his pieces, and sometimes you may even view the artist himself working as a part of the exhibition, thus bringing the the profession of an artist closer to the audience.

Living Room 306,4 km² is a city art festival, held annually at the beginning of June in Turku. The festival offers an opportunity for people and artists of all fields to experience art in surprising places and situations. The festival also encourages people to participate in art and to see their surroundings from a different perspective.

The Living Room Art Society will be included in the SaunaLab project to be carried out by the Museum Centre of Turku during the summer 2011. The Let’s Talk Sauna art work series are related to the sauna, bathing and the process of renewal.