Perpetuum, co-founded by Marita Muukkonen and Ivor Stodolsky in 2007, is a curatorial vehicle which brings together art, practice and enquiry. It acts as a conduit and engine to re-imagine certain basic historical, theoretical as well as practical paradigms in fields which often exist in disparate institutional frames and territories. PM has worked extensively in the Nordic, European and international field.
Perpetuum develops longer-term thematic projects which come to include conferences, workshops, residencies, small and large exhibitions, festivals, public and street art, publications, films and new formats.
Thematic Projects:
The first umbrella-project undertaken by Perpetuum was the Aleksanteri Cultural Fora which wedded an international conference on perestoika at the Aleksanteri Insitute (University of Helsinki) with a multi-part exhibition at Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki: The Raw, The Cooked and The Packaged – The Archive of Perestroika Art, November 2007- January 2008. Parallel to this a film series was shown at the National Film Archive, an exhibition of ephemera was held at the National Library, and publications including a conceptual newspaper catalogue The Raw, The Cooked and The Packaged and FRAMEWORK No. 8 In Need of Openess / Paths Not Taken were published. See documentation of the “Perestroika process” on our old website: https://perpetualmobile.wordpress.com/exhibitions/
The Re-Aligned Project
In progress for over three years, this large-scale project has had over 9 iterations and events in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Egypt, Palestine, Finland, Germany, Sweden and Norway. Forthcoming events are scheduled for the UK: www.re-aligned.net
The Perpetual Romani-Gypsy Pavilion
This project was launched at the Venice Biennale in 2009 in order to guarantee Romani-Gyspy representation after the no-show of the OSI sponsored Roma Pavilion in that year (http://www.perpetualpavilion.
Perpetuum’s focus on Roma-Gypsy art and the broader issues surrounding “pluriculturalism” are being developed in a new form at the Moderna Museet, Malmö (2014-2015) in co-operation with the Timea Junghaus (curator of the 1st Roma Pavilion sponsored by the OSI at the Venice Biennale in 2007).
The Arts Assembly,
This unusual and developing art-and-debate format has been deployed in a diversity of contexts, including ACSI in Helsinki, the Manifesta 8 (Murcia), ENSBA in Paris and CAFA in Beijing.
Residencies for Artists at Risk
The Nordic Fresh Air residencies for visual art practitioners at risk – a programme linked to the international Safe Haven initiatives in many European cities.
Perpetuum LABS
This experimental series of laboratories in collective learning, activism, art and theory has had two iterations so far.
PERPETUUM LABS/BAC – CURATING THE POLITICAL was held at the Baltic Art Centre (BAC). It was based on texts and discussions proposed by the invited mentors.
www.balticartcenter.com/perpetuum-labs-bac/
PERPETUUM LABS II – CURATING THE SOCIAL in Helsinki (the Library of the Blind, Kallio Kunsthalle and Helsingin Elokolo, attempted to help generate collective momentum for socially-engaged art practices in Helsinki. It was based on proposals from local artists and activists, and included talks by invited art actors.
Sino-Fi (forthcoming in 2016)
Perpetuum has been instrumental in bringing Chinese artists and curators to Finland. Talks have been co-hosted with other Finnish institutions, with figures such as Yang Fudong, Li Zhenhua and Feng Boyi among others. A forthcoming Finnish-Chinese exhibition is planned for Shanghai in 2016.
