I was born in Turku (1967), Finland. A place where the residents themselves – at least some of them, I would say – describe their condition of condition in the following way: we all have to come from somewhere, but we do not need to stay there. Personally, the idea of leaving came to my mind very soon. A bit later I realized that leaving is combined with the constant – both wish and also need – for returning. But I left. Already before I went to high school. I went to USA, Philadelphia to play ice hockey (1982-1983). Then I returned, and continued to play ice hockey while going to a high school in Turku that specialized in sports. That was fun. It is remarkably easy to be a good student in a sports school.
Then I got into university (1988), still in Turku. They took 150 students for the whole faculty of philosophy, political science, sociology and what have you in crime prevention that year. I got in as the number 148. I studied philosophy, concentrated on Aristotle and ethics. I also studied political science, focusing on history of ideas and critical theory. Feeling restless, I went to study for a full academic year in Lund, Sweden. After returning, I finished the double MA (1991).
How did I survive? Through government sponsoring that came in many guises. I got a loan from the government and money from the radio play of the songs that friends of mine band had recorded. I wrote some of the texts. They were definitely not very good. Not then and not now.
Then I went away again. Studied in Berlin, travelled in Argentina and Uruguay. I was enjoying the benefits of a dual sugar daddy: I got research grants from Finland and Germany (DAAD). I finished my Ph.D. in 1997. By then, I thought the sugar daddies would throw me more money, much more money for further leisure in deep-seated political philosophy research.
But no. No more research grants. Instead, Anna Katrine Dolven, a Norwegian born artist by then living in Berlin asked me if I liked to teach in Trondheim, Norway, where she had a position. I did. And well, there and then started something that I have continued ever since.
It took a while to admit myself that I actually enjoy teaching. As a professional, I write, I curate, and I organize. But teaching? I think it was in an old Woody Allen movie – I am sure it was not a Clint Eastwood vehicle – that a character gives a wonderful description of the profession: Those who can’t do anything else, they teach. And those who can do even less, they become sport teachers. And well, those who manage to go even lower than that, those teach art.
But we all need some hope, we need a saving grace. It took me years to figure this out.
After working in Trondheim I worked as a happy-go-lucky Gastarbeiter in Umeå, and then something weird happened. With the age of 33, I got elected as the director of the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki (00-05). I served my sentence of five long years of hard labor, did almost all of my civil duties (like 55%), and then continued my travels. I moved to work at the place that has a wonderful name: Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts, University
of Gothenburg.
Then I got into university (1988), still in Turku. They took 150 students for the whole faculty of philosophy, political science, sociology and what have you in crime prevention that year. I got in as the number 148. I studied philosophy, concentrated on Aristotle and ethics. I also studied political science, focusing on history of ideas and critical theory. Feeling restless, I went to study for a full academic year in Lund, Sweden. After returning, I finished the double MA (1991).
How did I survive? Through government sponsoring that came in many guises. I got a loan from the government and money from the radio play of the songs that friends of mine band had recorded. I wrote some of the texts. They were definitely not very good. Not then and not now.
Then I went away again. Studied in Berlin, travelled in Argentina and Uruguay. I was enjoying the benefits of a dual sugar daddy: I got research grants from Finland and Germany (DAAD). I finished my Ph.D. in 1997. By then, I thought the sugar daddies would throw me more money, much more money for further leisure in deep-seated political philosophy research.
But no. No more research grants. Instead, Anna Katrine Dolven, a Norwegian born artist by then living in Berlin asked me if I liked to teach in Trondheim, Norway, where she had a position. I did. And well, there and then started something that I have continued ever since.
It took a while to admit myself that I actually enjoy teaching. As a professional, I write, I curate, and I organize. But teaching? I think it was in an old Woody Allen movie – I am sure it was not a Clint Eastwood vehicle – that a character gives a wonderful description of the profession: Those who can’t do anything else, they teach. And those who can do even less, they become sport teachers. And well, those who manage to go even lower than that, those teach art.
But we all need some hope, we need a saving grace. It took me years to figure this out.
After working in Trondheim I worked as a happy-go-lucky Gastarbeiter in Umeå, and then something weird happened. With the age of 33, I got elected as the director of the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki (00-05). I served my sentence of five long years of hard labor, did almost all of my civil duties (like 55%), and then continued my travels. I moved to work at the place that has a wonderful name: Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts, University
of Gothenburg.
And the saving grace? I
enjoyed the part of teaching because it functioned as a critical mental and
aural context. When you say out things you immediately recognize when they
sound silly or just awful. It made me think and write better, I claim. It made me
also to contextualize how I talked about theory. The saving grace that
developed into a conviction that students in Art Academies do not need theory.
They need tools for critical yet constructive reflection. They need a focus on
discourses that emerge in and through the practices of taking part in the
production of knowledge in the field of contemporary art and visual culture. A
condensed version of this argument was published as “Teaching discourse –
reflection strong, not theory light”, published in Learning Mind, eds. Jacob & Baas,
University of California Press, 2009.
And meanwhile in the
jungle the lion is still sleeping. Now with two small kids and a wife who
enjoys her own sentence in a university structures. But I am still travelling.
Back and forth, back and forth the physical and imaginary wish and need to be
both-and, and the financial needs to find those sugar daddies, which allow the
practice of writing and thinking without becoming yet another
buy-play-and-throw away product.
13.04.2010
