Article in the Creators Project: An Artist Gave Pre-Teens Thousands of Dollars to Do Whatever They Wanted

An Artist Gave Pre-Teens Thousands of Dollars to Do Whatever They Wanted—So They Made a Bounce House

by Andrew Nunes

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Article in ArtNews: Inside Job

Inside Job: In the Tradition of Institutional Critique, Artists Are Throwing Wrenches Into the Art World’s Works

by Andrew Russeth

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Pilvi Takala – The Stroker

 

12 January 2017
8:00 pm - 10:00 pm

Hear internationally acclaimed artist Pilvi Takala in conversation with art curator Teresa Calonje on the unique performance piece that was commissioned by and created for Second Home in the summer of 2016.

For 10 days in July, Takala lived and worked at Second Home posing as Nina Nieminen, an entrepreneur interested in the positive impact of being touched.

Nina and her fictional business ‘Personnel Touch’ were integrated into the community on the premise of being a new part of Second Home’s wellbeing programme.

During her time at Second Home, Pilvi captured and archived people’s reactions to being touched and has since used this research to form the basis of a new performance piece which has been produced in collaboration with dancer Emma Waltraud Howes.

The dance piece will be showcased at Second Home in the afternoon and Pilvi and Teresa will discuss it as well as Pilvi’s experience of performing as Nina in Liberia in the evening.

Second Home thanks the Finnish Institute for their generous support of this event.

secondhome.io/cultural-programme/pilvi-takala-the-stroker

Pilvi Takala at Pump House Gallery

11 January – 27 March 2017
Pump House Gallery

Battersea Park, London, SW11 4NJ

Solo exhibition
Pilvi Takala

Pump House Gallery presents an exhibition building on The Committee, a 2013 project by artist Pilvi Takala.

For the project funded by the Emdash Award, Takala invited a group of children from a youth centre in Bow, London to spend her £7,000 award in any way they wished. They decided to design and produce a custom-made bouncy castle called “Five Star Bouncy House”, which could be used by them and hired out to raise funds for the youth centre. In Takala’s video that follows the process, the children explain how they decided to spend the prize money, discussing the process of decision-making and the values that guided them.

As part of the exhibition the “Five Star Bouncy House” will be erected on weekends when the weather permits.

About the artist:

In her complex and rich practice Pilvi Takala confuses the space of exactly what the work is, whether a performance, a video, a sculpture or the space left behind after one of her interactions. Takala’s work sits between a serious investigation and playful agitation of social and political structures. Using disguise to engage and negotiate different social terrains, she reveals unspoken rules within systems of culture.

Takala (b. 1981) lives and works in Berlin.

pumphousegallery.org.uk/programme/pilvi-takala