Stuff about books

Sofi Oksanen is a very popular writer in this country, who has won some really big Finnish literature prizes. I found an English language copy of her novel "Purge"(Finnish title: "Puhdistus") in the library and decided to read it, as she's very successful and respected here.
I'm very pleased that I'm reading it now, as it is a very good book. It's very powerful, quite gripping, and the subject matter is very intense. At times it's painful to read. The story is quite dark, but it is extremely well-written. I can understand why the author has had so much acclaim - the quality of the writing is very high, and she is also dealing with difficult subject matter. She makes the characters and situations very real. This means that it's not always the most comfortable book to read, but the story is very compelling. I'd definitely recommend reading it. Also, I used to have very similar hair to Sofi Oksanen, so that's another reason to love her.
On the subject of books, I decided to have a morning walk by the river today, and saw that there are many mobile libraries on the river bank. There are far too many to count, but they seem to have come from cities all over the country. There were foreign ones too - I noticed ones from Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Russia, and Germany. They didn't appear to be open at the time that I walked past, but pedestrians were very interested in them. I assume this is part of the Capital of Culture things. I have no idea how long they'll be there for, but it seems a very good way to find lots of new books. It was certainly strange to see so many buses lined up. I'm so glad I'm here whilst there are so many special things for the Capital of Culture- it makes the whole thing even more exciting.

Remember to relax

Lots of things have happened today to get me stressed and pissed off. I really overspent at the weekend, and I'm not very proud of myself. It looks like my rent will be paid in installments this month. However, if the pre-school I had an interview at could be bothered to pay me for my time, as they promised, it would likely solve the problem. The lesson we've learned this weekeend is that drunk people shouldn't be allowed to pay with cards or withdraw money. Bad things will happen.
Despite all that, I had quite a relaxing few hours sitting by the river tonight. It was very hot today, and lots of people were walking around; I felt very connected to Turku for some reason.
Another lovely thing is that the benches by the river, near to the library, have special Capital of Culture Marimekko designed cushions. There are lots of street art things around the river area, such as balloons with ships on them in the trees, and giant ducks in the river. I'm so irritated that my iPhone charger is broken so I can't take any pcitures. If I wasn't a big drunken fool I could have bought a new one already...

Strange musical evening

It turned out that the cultural stuff was continuing today too, so the hangover did not beat me! When I walked near the river earlier there was a zip wire strung up across it, which I think was bordering on stupid, but no one appeared to fall in or get stuck in the middle.
We went to a gig on the riverbank this evening, it was free, and the band are apparently quite famous. It meant nothing to me, but Jätkäjätkät anyone? Imagine, if you will: Finnish rap that's channelling a bit of ska, with a mandolin and an accordion. It literally made no sense, but it was fun. Personally I wouldn't pay for it, but they were good. It was quite nice whilst standing in the sunshine.
Of course, because it's summer in Turku, there were some mad hippies. I've now had the experience of watching a fat, middle aged, possibly homosexual man grinding against thin air, slapping his belly, and doing some Bollywood style hand movements. That was interesting.
This particular weekend was organised by a group from, of all places, Manchester. We were informed of this by a lovely English man on stage, and I was a bit tempted to run at him screaming "Oh my god, English, English!" Thankfully, I resisted these urges. This was another part of the Capital of Culture stuff.
I'm so glad to be here, involved in all this mad stuff. Turku is buzzing at the moment, and I don't think I've seen anything like this. Maybe after winter, when everything is so dark and cold, the people here just appreciate summer and the opportunity to be outside a lot more. This city seems a lot more sociable now. I've never really felt this in any other place, and it's really exciting. There seems to be colour everywhere, and it feels like a totally different place to where I was during the winter. I've gone through some big changes since then, so maybe that's affecting how I feel. I always prefer summer, but I feel so excited this year, and I don't even know what's going to happen!

Logomo

Today I went to Logomo for the Tom of Finland retrospective, and it was a really good day. Some of the images were quite explicit, and certainly not appropriate for children, but some of the work was more romantic. The technical drawing skill was stunning, and I came away from the exhibition with a lot of respect for Tom. Currently, most people don't find homosexuality shocking, and most people don't consider it to be wrong, or an illness, but he was making work about being gay at a time when it was illegal and very much frowned upon. I think he was very brave to put something like that out there and to be honest about who he was and what he was into at a time when the reaction would be very extreme. Work like this probably wouldn't be quite so controversial if it was done today, but in his time it was a risky thing to produce. I hope that the subject matter doesn't scare people away, because the drawings are very skillful and really do show talent. The exhibition is on all year as part of the capital of culture programme, and it's worth seeing.
The other exhibitions were also good. One of them was photography based and concentrated on models. There were a huge range of artists included, and this lead to a wide variety of models being shown. It was quite diverse, and as I normally work in portraiture it was of particular interest to me. I particularly liked a room full of pictures taken to resemble early photography, and they were quite convincing. In some cases it was almost impossible to tell that they were contemporary.
As a gallery space I thought Logomo was brilliant. It's an old industrial building, and paraphenalia such as fuse boxes have been kept in place, which provides an exciting contrast with the artwork. The setting isn't overly refined, which was appealing. It also has huge windows, giving a lot of natural light, and on a day like today - bright, sunny, and clear - it was really beneficial.
It's behind the train station, so a bit out of the way, but definitely worth a visit. It's more expensive than other galleries I've been to here, but I think you get a bit more for your money, and it has a much more contemporary feel. I definitely preferred it to the Taidemuseo, for example, which seems a bit old and dull in comparison. I hope the secondary exhibition changes at some point, because I'd really like to revisit Logomo.
When it comes to jobs I've had a few more ideas and suggestions. I've applied to some more things, and am developing a plan to sort something out. Hopefully it works, because I really don't want to leave Turku. This week I'm going to be concentrating on sorting these things out. I'm very determined to find something so I can carry on with things here, where I am happy. This is hanging over my head and ruining my otherwise perfect mood, so I want something to come up to solve the problem.

Otto Mäkilä

Today I've been to the Taidemuseo with one of my friends. The exhibition of what is apparently some of the best pieces from their collection wasn't particularly enjoyable. A few things stood out, but not many. I think part of the problem was that it was heavily landscape-based, and I don't find landscapes particularly interesting. The works were all examples of brilliant technical skill, but nothing really grabbed me, which was a shame. Finnish artists, particularly from the 19th century, seemed very into painting the countryside. I'm sure that if that kind of art caters to your tastes it would be an excellent exhibition to see, but unfortunately it was not for me.

After that we saw the Otto Mäkilä exhibition, and thankfully I enjoyed that so much more. The collection as quite extensive, and showed a really good body of work. Some pieces reminded me of Marc Chagall, others seemed to be influenced by Cubism and Futurism. It was really worth seeing. I also really liked that Mäkilä's sketchbook pages were included in the show; I always like being able to see the thought process behind an artist's work. Too often we are just presented with the final "masterpiece", and for art students it can be a bit discouraging to think that the artist was magically able to produce something so brilliant just like that whilst we cannot. Most of the time you don't get to see the initial planning, or the 10 attempts that went wrong before the final piece, so it's good to be reminded that these famous people weren't any different to us.

Once again, I end up wondering why no Finnish artists seem to be well known in my country. Do they not want to be known outside of Finland or Scandinavia? Is the market in Britain oversaturated with native artists, making it difficult for foreign artists to break through? Artists from other Western European countries and America seem to make a name for themselves, so why not Northern European artists? Using Otto Mäkilä as an example, there is no reason why his work shouldn't be as famous in England as it is in Finland. It's not offensive, it doesn't contain cultural references that people outside of Finland couldn't understand, and it's not actually so different to work that has been successful in that country. I'm starting to wonder if the artists choose not to make themselves known outside of Finland, and if that's the case, why? It's quite frustrating, because I think the work is brilliant and that people in other countries should be aware of it. When I go back to university I will have to write a dissertation, and I'm starting to think that this could be worthy subject matter - I'd really like to find out why it is this way. I'd like to find a Finnish artist or curator and ask their opinion on this. Artists from other countries are known in England, and some Finnish artists are extremely well known and respected here, so why does that not translate to somewhere else? There seems to be a good enough artistic history and tradition.

The only exception seems to be Tom of Finland, and I think his notoriety stems from the controversy surrounding his work. He does apparently have a gallery representing his work in London, and has had exhibitions in France and USA. Even so, I still had never heard of him before coming here. There's an exhibition of his work on at the moment as part of the Capital of Culture programme, which I'd be interested to see.

I'm glad I have the opportunity to learn about Finnish art, even if other people are still missing out on it. It makes me wonder how much quality art we're missing out on, and I think it's a great shame.

Turku 2011

I finally watched the opening thingy for Turku becoming the culture capital. Suski cleverly recorded it off the tv, which was a good thing because we took too long getting ready and missed the whole thing.
After seeing it I'm actually quite glad we didn't have to stand in the cold watching that, because it was quite boring. At one point they were playing the theme tune of BBC News for some reason...and there was a lot of random music and a really bad song about Turku.
For song reason the show was based around a British group of acrobats! In the end credits the names of the people who wrote and performed the show were very clearly not Finnish names. They sounded suspiciously English to me. I think that's a shame, and such a wasted opportunity to show what's good about Finland and what Finnish people can do, and surely that's part of the point of being the capital of culture? As the show wasn't great maybe some Finnish people would have done a better job.
It was all a bit disappointing. The fireworks were quite nice, and Tarja Halonen had a very nice red hat on, but apart from that it wasn't very good. I hope that for the rest of the year there'll be a bit more emphasis on Finnish-ness. Silly Finland.

First language class

Today, on the second attempt I managed to get to my language class successfully. I was extremely nervous but everything went fine. The teacher is great, and spent a long time trying to guess which country I came from because my strange name was confusing her. She was very surprised that I'm English. I'd guess that most people in the class are older than me, but everyone seems very encouraging towards each other, helping each other to get the answers, and the class has a nice atmosphere.
Luckily I was able to keep up with everyone else quite well, despite missing all of the classes last week. I wasn't the only person who joined today, and that made me feel better. I was a bit scared when the teaching method turned out to be asking different people questions in front of everyone, and I was included just the same as everyone else. I managed to answer everything, and understood things most of the time, so I'm glad I'm not very far behind the rest of the group. Today was mainly about numbers, most of which I already knew anyway, so I coped well.
I was really anxious about going there today, but there was no need because the class was quite relaxed. I'm hopeful that this will help me out and make me more confident. I'm glad I'm doing it.
Currently I'm drinking Lämmin Kuppi Strawberry and Vanilla soup. Is it soup, juice or tea? I was very sceptical about sweet soup, but I'm rather enjoying it now. It's nice to have something warm and comforting after coming inside from cold, sludgy weather.
Finally, as of Saturday, Turku is the European capital of culture for 2011. Very exciting. Suski and I meant to go to the opening show, but we spent too long getting ready and then missed the whole thing. It's quite cool though, because there will hopefully be some special art events going on throughout the year, which would be really interesting for me to see, and really make this year even better for me.
http://www.turku2011.fi/