International AMORPH!14 Festival in Helsinki, 15–19 October 2014 Produced by Artists’ Association MUU, Amorph! is the oldest performance art festival in the Nordic region. This year’s festival is held from 15 to 19 October 2014. A platform for encounters between artists, communities and audiences, the festival will a offer variety of international performance art around Helsinki. The theme of the AMORPH!14 festival is community performance. The featured works address such issues as: What is community for us? What might it be? How do communities perform themselves? The festival features recent works by the following ten performance artists and eight communities: Ieke Trinks (NL) & One family | Shawn Chua (SG) & Letter Writers | Gianluigi Biagini (FI/IT) & Africans | Essi Kausalainen (FI) & Stara | Juli Reinartz (DE/SE) & Winter Garden | My Dad’s Strip Club: Ange Taggart/Ian Nesbitt (GB) & Kalasatama Community | Charli Clark (GB) & Steve Maher (IE) & Male-Voice Choir Könsikkäät | Mari Keski-Korsu (FI) & Juli Reinartz (DE/SE) & People Celebrating the Last Night In addition to unforgettable performances, the festival programme includes workshops, club nights, exhibitions, screenings and an open panel discussion in collaboration with Mother’s tongue festival. Presenting a wide range of contemporary performance artists, the festival also offers the public an opportunity to engage them in discussion. During the festival, an ArtBus festival bus will be driving around the centre of Helsinki. ArtBus is a performing art space that runs with electricity and offers daily changing thematic programme throughout the Amorph!14 festival. The festival is generously supported by the Kone Foundation, the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, the City of Helsinki and the Visual art Finland Frame. For more info about the programme, visit http://muu.fi/amorph14/ https://www.facebook.com/pages/Amorph14/1470355329875784 Enquiries and interview requests: Festival curator Tuomas Laitinen: tel. +358 (0)50 4672647 tuomas.laitinen@gmail.com Producer Mia Erlin: tel. +358 (0)50 3303764 amorph@muu.fimailto:amorph@muu.fi FEATURED ARTISTS Mari Keski-Korsu (FI) & Juli Reinartz invite the audience to the Last Party that is based on people’s wishes. The party celebrates the ending of humanity and of all things, without any mourning or need to make plans. If there is no future and nothing that binds us to the past, no norms, rules or conventions – what happens in the Last Party? Essi Kausalainen has made a performance by accompanying workers of the Helsinki City construction and maintenance company Stara. Created in the everyday work environment of the participants, the performance takes place in a snow removal vehicle, on construction scaffolding and during a coffee break. Ieke Trinks will work with a family, creating a separate performance for each family member. The individual performances will reflect the performers’ personal qualities such as age, interests, profession or role in the family. The resulting series of performances builds up into a unique whole. Gianluigi Biagini turns his gaze to the Mediterranean Sea that serves as a protective buffer to the European community, and to the African immigrants who have drowned under its surface. He will organise a procession of fish-headed people who will march through the city. Charli Clark and Steve Mahler intend to create a real community product: together with the male-voice choir Könsikkäät, they will brew a unique batch of beer that will be distributed to the audience, accompanied by drinking songs. Juli Reinartz asks if plants are a community of their own, or whether they will some day be part of the human community. Reinartz seeks to communicate with the community of plants and invites the audience to join in the discussion. Shawn Chua’s community is queer and emergent. Chua explores how art creates communities; as a possible starting point for community, he offers the links and contactseeking gestures of people fixing Tom of Finland stamps on their letters. MY DAD’S STRIP CLUB: Ange Taggart/Ian Nesbitt will bring together residents of the Helsinki district of Kalasatama in the spirit of creative self-organisation. Taggart and Nesbitt want to avoid conventional places of art, preferring to work instead in the public space. The result is an ever-widening art project for the emerging community in Kalasatama.