All my childhood I enjoyed drawing and building things. My parents supported these naïve efforts with generous recognition. Recently, I found an old letter from my grandmother. She writes me on my tenth birthday. The letter says that if I work hard I might become a designer. She was Finnish, so I guess she imagined one of their famous modernists. At the time, I guess I hardly knew what design was. Over the teenage years my focus shifted into tabletop games and especially role-playing games, like Dungeons and Dragons. Most often however, these games seemed too limited and I quickly came to develop games of my own. I loved making up new worlds and creating playing systems. And I was lucky having friends who wanted to try them. In high school I also played in a band, and the same mechanisms of dynamic and collaborative work process seemed applicable. The interests were always combined and recombined.
Later, I did some years of craft studies and art prep school. Guitar building, carpentry, jewellery and textiles, all with dirty hands. Later, I spent some years at university, reading art history, design theory and fashion studies. I started design school. I taught at several places. Worked long for a PhD. The themes were always around the interfaces between art, fashion and design, the combinations. All endeavours were based on hands-on work and making things. Some things got exhibited, but most were workshops and process-based. The money always ran low. It became better over the last years, as I could get a mix of PhD stipend, teacher salary and art grants to fund projects. It is a lot of work. And still, all projects, first and last and always, run on below-minimum budget, if any. It is a tough mix, to make art work.
Over the last years I have begun to reconsider the knowledge earned from the old role-playing games and playing in a band. The social organization, collaborative endeavours, dynamic exploration, development of skills and techniques, critical questioning and the aesthetics of shared recreation. You play in a group, with some relation to general scales, rules, systems and contexts. You start with covers, then you set out to deeper water. You create harmonies and disharmonies, examine the fringes, and stalk along the edges, where there is tension but also room for ideas. You try to get paid for your work. You play with friends and create new worlds. And you share this new collaborative energy, which others can surf on.
I guess that this is my alma mater.
9.06.2010
Later, I did some years of craft studies and art prep school. Guitar building, carpentry, jewellery and textiles, all with dirty hands. Later, I spent some years at university, reading art history, design theory and fashion studies. I started design school. I taught at several places. Worked long for a PhD. The themes were always around the interfaces between art, fashion and design, the combinations. All endeavours were based on hands-on work and making things. Some things got exhibited, but most were workshops and process-based. The money always ran low. It became better over the last years, as I could get a mix of PhD stipend, teacher salary and art grants to fund projects. It is a lot of work. And still, all projects, first and last and always, run on below-minimum budget, if any. It is a tough mix, to make art work.
Over the last years I have begun to reconsider the knowledge earned from the old role-playing games and playing in a band. The social organization, collaborative endeavours, dynamic exploration, development of skills and techniques, critical questioning and the aesthetics of shared recreation. You play in a group, with some relation to general scales, rules, systems and contexts. You start with covers, then you set out to deeper water. You create harmonies and disharmonies, examine the fringes, and stalk along the edges, where there is tension but also room for ideas. You try to get paid for your work. You play with friends and create new worlds. And you share this new collaborative energy, which others can surf on.
I guess that this is my alma mater.
9.06.2010
