Transformations in Practice
Pixelache Helsinki is a Finland-based creative association on emerging creative practices with almost 20 years of activity in 2022. Starting as a Festival of Electronic Arts & Subcultures, throughout the past decade the association has been running a trans-disciplinary platform for emerging art, design, research, technology and activism that involved a dynamic local community, and an annual festival experimenting with a rotating directorial model.
The association’s rich history and activities in the field of transformational creative practice are the core focus of Pixelache's Experimental Production (ExP) within the context of CreaTures – Creative Practices for Transformational Futures research project. We set out the hope of answering: How do we keep going?
We sought to explore the how the association has developed and sustained it's festival organisational practice. By engaging with organisational meta-data, the Office as a tangible memory device, and the production of two audiozines, we gathered perspectives from active members reflecting upon how the organisation has changed via objects and narratives.
Due to the persons who attended the Audiozine (gathering materials) workshop, the temporal focus of the process proved to be between Festivals 2013-2019. While the festivals explored Do-it-with-others cultural network practices & open curatorial models, de-centralisation, and engaging local urban activism issues in Helsinki, long-term production staff left, many new association members joined. From 2015 onward, each festival took energy, but also made space for new actions, slowly adjusting the profile towards post-media and performative events.
Listen to the Audiozines Decentralization, burn-out & hijack and Community of practices linked above in navigation bar,
Look at Visual documentation, or read a more detailed Report
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Production credits
Voices: Antti Ahonen, Anastasia Artemeva, Agnieszka Pokrywka, Steve Maher, Irina Mutt, Saša Nemec, Andrew Gryf Paterson, Vishnu Vardhani Rajan.
Production Team: Andrew Gryf Paterson, Irina Mutt, Simugan Sivanesan, Antti Ahonen
Workshop planning & facilitation: Irina Mutt, Sumugan Sivanesan, Andrew Gryf Paterson
Audio recording: Sumugan Sivanesan.
Audio edit and post-production: Sumugan Sivanesan, Irina Mutt, Andrew Gryf Paterson
Background organisiation research & metadata: Andrew Gryf Paterson, Irina Mutt
Photographs: Antti Ahonen, Andrew Gryf Paterson
Project lead/initiator and report: Andrew Gryf Paterson
Support team/financial admin: Mathilde Palenius
Tehnical support/web admin: John Fail
Contact: andrew [.at.] pixelache.ac, irina.mutt [.at.] pixelache.ac, sumugan [.at.] pixelache.ac
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Participant biographies
Agnieszka Pokrywka - Pixelache member since 2014 - by education is a filmmaker, interaction designer, art critic and physicist. By practice she is a graphic designer, researcher and cultural organizer. By heart she is a multimedia explorer interested in participatory, collaborative and open source practices while digging into topics of fiction, unconventional storytelling and interactive, networked narratives. She is a co-founder of Super Eclectic studio based in Helsinki. http://supereclectic.team
Anastasia Artemeva - Pixelache member since 2017 - is a visual and socially-engaged artist and researcher based in Helsinki. Her projects explore and make space for new interactions. Conceptually, the works are based on codes of social norms and accepted truths, which are influenced by socio-political, cultural and personal limitations and boundaries. https://anastasia-artemeva.com/
Andrew Gryf Paterson - Pixelache member since 2004 - is an 'artist-organiser', cultural producer, educator and independent researcher. Specialises in developing and leading inter- and trans- disciplinary projects exploring connections between art, digital culture and science, cultural activism, ecological and sustainability movements, cultural heritage and collaborative networks. http://agryfp.info
Antti Ahonen - Pixelache member since 2003 - has been working in the Pixelache continuum of events from the beginning, as a documentarist, artist, curator and board member. He has been working in, and between the fields of visual arts, photography, media art performance art and sound art. https://www.anttia.net/
Irina Mutt - Pixelache member since 2021 - is an interdependent writer and curator from Barcelona currently based in Helsinki. She has curated exhibitions, organized workshops and lectures in Barcelona, Madrid, Navarra and Helsinki.
Saša Nemec - Pixelache member since 2017 - is a Slovenian intermedia artist and producer. Her artistic practice spans between exploration of new technologies and use of age-old techniques. From mending a loose button to creating garments with 3D scanning technology. She is in parallel an Communication and Social media specialist and an arts producer for several international festivals like Pixelache (Helsinki), Red Dawns (Ljubljana) and the City of Women (Ljubljana).
Steve Maher - Pixelache member since 2016 - is an award winning conceptual, electronics and relational artist from Limerick, Ireland based in Helsinki, Finland and working internationally. Maher works across a broad range of topics, at the core of Maher's practice is the exploration of cultural artefacts and rituals. Language is central to Maher's work, both through the dialogical methodologies he implements in his relational projects, as well as in its direct use as a material in his work concerning languages themselves(both constructed and naturally evolved). http://stevemaher.net
Mathilde Palenius - Pixelache member since 2020 - French-Finnish artistic producer and projects coordinator based in Helsinki. Graduated in 2021 from a Master's degree in European and international cultural and artistic projects coordination, I have been working on various projects as producer and coordinator with Pixelache association, Bioart Society or Myymälä 2 gallery. I am currently Pixelache board member, treasurer, and active member.
Sumugan Sivanesan - Pixelache member since 2020 - is an anti-disciplinary artist, researcher and writer. Often working collaboratively his interests span migrant histories and minority politics, activist media, artist infrastructures and more-than-human rights. http://www.sivanesan.net/
Vishnu Vardhani Rajan - Pixelache member since 2018 - as a body philosopher, has extensive training in dance-drama performance kuchipudi. Vishnu actively engages in investigative-performance through which they attempt to debunk colonial narratives and to move from geo-politics to geo-poethics. https://www.vishnuvardhani.com/
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This project was commissioned as a 6 month medium-length experimental production in the laboratory programme of CreaTures – Creative Practices for Transformational Futures creatures-eu.org
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 870759.