Art in Public x 10 – IHME 2009-2018
The book collects together the ten annual IHME commissions, and features conversations with the artists: Miroslaw Balka, Yael Bartana, Christian Boltanski, Jeremy Deller, Antony Gormley, Henrik Håkansson, Susan Philipsz, Katerina Seda, Superflex, Theaster Gates & The Black Monks of Mississippi.
Edited by Paula Toppila. Text by Claire Doherty.
Designed by Ilona Ilottu / Dog Design Oy.
IHME’s visual identity: Kokoro & Moi.
Published by Hatje Cantz.
English. 240 pages, 23 x 27 cm, Hardcover.
Available from publishers web store.
IHME Contemporary Art Festival 2018
The artist Henrik Håkansson’s IHME Project THE BEETLE focusses on an endangered species of Coleoptera named halavasepikkä (Hylochares cruentatus). Håkansson’s long film and the enlarged still images from it on advertising boards erected in Myyrmäki which is the living environment of the beetle put the spotlight on this rare insect species, prompting discussion about human impacts on natural diversity. THE BEETLE film can be watched at Yle Areena until May 25, 2019. Read more about the artwork, wide-ranging festival programme and the audience work by clicking the cover image.
IHME Contemporary Art Festival 2017
Theaster Gates brought his group, The Black Monks of Mississippi, to Helsinki to enact a body of work titled The Black Charismatic. The work consisted of: a film shown at the Finnkino Tennispalatsi cinema; a live concert at the Rock Church; a video installation shown in the Finnish Salvation Army Temple; and the release of a three-LP recording. The work material recorded in October 2016 was recorded in Otaniemi Chapel in Espoo, the Andreas Church in Helsinki, Myllysali hall on Suomenlinna, and the National Museum of Finland. Read more about the artwork, wide-ranging festival programme and the audience work by clicking the cover image.
IHME Contemporary Art Festival 2016
Kateřina Šedá’s IHME Project, Tram Busker’s Tour brought buskers from the world’s metropolises onto Helsinki’s all ten tram lines on 16-19 March, 2016. During the four days of its existence the project consisted out of more than 300 hours of live music and reached altogether almost 24 000 tram travelers. An everyday journey turned into a shared experience. At the heart of the wide-ranging festival programme, as well as the IHME School, were the following: the IHME Project, art and communities, connections between art and education, and the question of what artists do when they create art. Read more by clicking the cover image.
IHME Contemporary Art Festival 2015
Jeremy Deller designed the IHME Project entitled Do Touch. In this work, the public on their everyday rounds was momentarily faced with their shared past, when museum objects left their glass cases and made their way into the hands of city residents in seven public spaces. People had a chance to inspect selected objects from the collections of Helsinki’s historical museums for a week in March 2015. The Do Touch staff members gave visitors further information on the objects and the time period they were used. IHME and Jeremy Deller also staged 24 Hour Rockshow, a rock-documentary marathon on 28-29 March in Helsinki.
IHME Contemporary Art Festival 2014
The IHME Project 2014 was Yael Bartana’s True Finn. In her film Bartana looks at Finnishness and the national identity. An open call was used to select eight people representing different backgrounds, the aim being to create a utopian moment in Finland. They all spent a week living together in a house by a lake in the middle of the Finnish winter, and the life there was filmed. The film, which combines reality-TV, staged scenes, plus film-archive material, had its world premiere at Bio Rex cinema in Helsinki on 31 March 2014. The film has subsequently been viewable globally on the Yle Areena on-demand service until the end of 2014. The theme of the IHME Days was the national identity. Read more by clicking the cover image.
IHME Contemporary Art Festival 2013
The IHME Project artist 2013 Miroslaw Balka wanted to give the time and space in his artwork to the residents of Helsinki, and to their most important questions. Eight communities participated in Signals, and it was carried out in the form of four Communication Points, in events with the communities’ questions at their core. Each event started with the questions signaled in the urban space using semaphore-flag signals, after which an open discussion of the topics began. Residents, politicians and experts participated equally in the discussions. The theme of the IHME Days held at the Old Student House in Helsinki was the potential influence of art on society. Read more by clicking the cover image.
IHME Contemporary Art Festival 2012
The IHME Contemporary Art Festival in 2012 gave the public a chance to experience French artist Christian Boltanski’s The Heart Archive. Each installation of The Heart Archive takes the form of a space where recordings are made of human heartbeats. The Heart Archive expanded the scope of the IHME Contemporary Art Festival to four cities: Helsinki, Joensuu, Rovaniemi and Vaasa. The IHME Days in Helsinki took up the themes of collecting and the archive. Read more by clicking the cover image.
IHME Contemporary Art Festival 2011
The Danish Superflex group’s installation created for the IHME Contemporary Art Festival 2011 was a film and sculpture titled Modern Times Forever (Stora Enso Building, Helsinki). The film was shown in Helsinki Market Square on a 40m² LED screen, so that one could see the original building simultaneously with the building in the film. In the film the building changed all the time. The film lasted over ten days and the film could be watched 24 hours a day. The themes of the IHME Days derived from the IHME Project and were the time, the city and the future. Read more by clicking the cover image.
IHME Contemporary Art Festival 2010
The IHME Project 2010 was the sound installation When Day Closes designed by artist Susan Philipsz for the Helsinki Central Railway Station. In the work the artist performs unaccompanied The Song of My Heart (Sydämeni laulu) composed by Jean Sibelius to a poem by Aleksis Kivi. The IHME Project was exhibited in the Central Hall for a full month. The song accompanied people from one place and state of mind to another as they passed through the railway station. The themes of the IHME Days, in the spirit of the IHME Project by Susan Philipsz, were sound as art work and art in public space. Read more by clicking the cover image.
IHME Contemporary Art Festival 2009
British sculptor Antony Gormley was the artist to conceive the first IHME Project in 2009. Gormley created the work Clay and the Collective Body in the Kaisaniemi sports field in Helsinki, bringing together clay and Helsinki locals. The Project featured a huge clay cube that was both a challenge and a shared bodily experience. Gormley’s work brought together Mass, Space and Energy, and encouraged to ask questions about who makes art, how art can be made and who it can be made for. The work took place in four-hour sessions, with about 2,000 participants. Read more by clicking the cover image.
IHME 0 Film Programme 2008
The first production of Pro Arte Foundation Finland was the IHME 0 programme of artists’ films and videos. IHME 0 took over Helsinki’s Bio Rex cinema on 29.3.2008. This offering of films and videos highlighted the main focuses of the Foundation’s work: public space, community and internationalism. In the first section of the programme were shown the videoworks by the Albanian Anri Sala and The Battle of Orgreave, made by the British Jeremy Deller in collaboration with the film director Mike Figgis. The second section comprised of the joint work by Lauri Astala and Elina & Hanna Brotherus and films by the Lithuanian Deimantas Narkevičius. The last showing got started off by Francis Alÿs, who works in Mexico, and ended with the American Matthew Barney’s film Drawing Restraint 9.