Rovaniemi

November 3 – 18, 2009
Barents Ideal Cities exhibition in Napa-gallery

The Barents Ideal Cities exhibition provides glimpses into three Arctic cities. The works were carried out in Tromsø, Norway; Murmansk, Russia; and Rovaniemi, Finland.

In the early spring of 2009, Tromsø served as the venue for winter art and city walks. Timo Jokela and Maria Huhmarniemi instructed a workshop where participants created a snow installation in the park of the Tromsø art association gallery and carried out space-specific studies, trampled footpaths on snow, and documented walking trails in the centre and outside of the centre of the city. The guiding idea behind the snow installations and walking trails was the interconnectedness of the free form, organic circle of nature and the shapes of the constructed surroundings.

“MurmanskMotion – Movement in the City” was a city art workshop for Murmansk art students supervised by art education student Heidi Hänninen. Students from the Murmansk Art School and Art Institute examined their own cityscape through croquis exercises and drawings and making of stop-motion videos.

Miss Rovaniemi is the work of art education students Jaakko Moilanen, Linda Zweygberg, Lotta Linnamaa, Anna Kajava and Siiri Räisänen. The video is a documentation of a beauty contest among various buildings in Rovaniemi.

Viewers of the exhibition can deliberate about the ideal form of housing in Rovaniemi through the installations of Sofia Waara, Veronika Peskova and Yumi Yamane, all students of the Faculty of Art and Design in the University of Lapland. The shape of the work refers to a Lappish hut – there is a circle of pillows on the floor for visitors to sit on as well as some wool which may be used as material for small art works to be given as gifts to the decision-makers of the city of Rovaniemi. There are also unwritten post cards on which exhibition viewers may write their thoughts on the architecture and constructions in Rovaniemi.