The future is happening now. With so much emphasis on the future, its end, and lack of agencies to alter its demise, our thoughts lead us to focus, remind and inform ourselves of the potentialities and (re)constructions of now. There is no time but the present to transform, to reimagine and to represent our moment(s).
Initiated by PUBLICS, Today Is Our Tomorrow is a collaborative, collective, and transdisciplinary festival – a coming together of affinities, alliances and differences. Taking place this year at club Kaiku and the neighbouring spaces Kieku and Stidilä, the program is produced in partnership with numerous local and international organisations, initiatives and institutions. Today Is Our Tomorrow takes the form of a roving constellation of practices, discussions, talks, workshops, installations, interventions, film screenings, events, live performances, DJ sets, curatorial projects, and live music intersecting with one another across three main interconnected venues.
The festival presents in microcosm, alter-futures being enacted, lived and represented as current socio-cultural and artistic practices based in Finland and globally. Our collaborative methodology and consultation aims to represent an ecology and diversity of thought and experience. The 2019 edition of Today Is Our Tomorrow is curated, commissioned, organised in collaboration with: Academy of Fine Arts, Baltic Circle, Globe Art Point, IHME Helsinki, Kohta, Index Foundation, Latitudes, Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, Live Art and Performance Studies (LAPS), Museum of Impossible Forms, osloBIENNALEN, and PUBLICS.
Program:
The opening day of Today Is Our Tomorrow presents Mythological Migrations: Chapter 1: The Nightclub, a one-night multidisciplinary exhibit that investigates the nightclub as method, focusing on artistic practitioners looking at queerness and Islam in a migratory context. Commissioned by PUBLICS, the project challenges exclusionary histories in European club culture that specifically target immigrants and people of color. Artists include Tamara Al-Mashouk, and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto aka Faluda Islam, who collectively engage in political tactics and strategies, disrupting the dance floor, and complicating issues of representation and performance through a diasporic lens. The night also premieres Journey to the CharBagh, a film by Abdullah Qureshi centered around the figure of the Buraq, a winged creature with the ability to travel to heaven.
On Friday, Coalition of Care, brings differing moods and perspectives to the festival. The group–Daze Aghaji, Ain Bailey, Anna Tjé, Black Obsidian Sound System (B.O.S.S.), Katarzyna Perlak, Rebecca Bellantoni, Rowdy SS, Maija Baijukya–have been gathered by curator Adelaide Bannerman to embody, act and explore ideas and approaches to care and commitment. Coalition of Care is a sorority of artists, thinkers, and affinities, whilst articulating multiple thoughts, movements and gestures: “Our methods are intentioned and improvisatory, our proposals are contingent on the energy of community and allyship.” Coalition of Care possess senses of joy, precarity and pessimism, doing the productive work of dismantling redundant hegemonies with view to configuring and situating ourselves in reflexive, responsive spaces.
A nomadic queer club concept and discursive platform Karmaklubb* takes over the club on Saturday. The program involves Tony Cokes, Karolinski (live and DJ-set), DJ-sets by DJ Baby Dyke, the collective Konsept [X], as well as a performance by Louis (Harald & Louis) and a talk by Eva Rowson, amongst others. Karmaklubb* is about creating hybrid social spaces for conversations and meetings across categories; an open dialogue cross borders, and constructive approaches towards tolerance and differences.
Across the festival spaces there will be new commissions, installations and sited works on view during the three days by Camille Auer, Leah Beeferman, Tony Cokes, Hlynur Hallsson, Basim Magdy, Marepe, Mona Marzouk, Jaakko Pallasvuo and Skuja Braden. A daily schedule of live performances and intimate events include artists Mercedes Azpilicueta, Mette Edvardsen, Valentin Kimstedt, Hatz Lambo & Varia Sjöström, Lime Rickey International and Plastique Fantastique.
As well as artist talks, lectures and workshops–including And Forever And Forever led by Emmeli Person, Keep It Complex, Kate Rich and Leyya Mona Tawil–there will be a extensive curated programme of films and cinema with artists Camille Auer, Yael Bartana, Jonathas de Andrade, Núria Güell, Honkasalo-Niemi-Virtanen, Jaakko Pallasvuo & MSL, Chris Kraus, Basim Magdy, The Otolith Group, Plastique Fantastique, Anni Puolakka, Sepideh Rahaa and Althea Thauberger, many of which are showing in Finland for the first time.
Participants/Artists:
Camille Auer / Mercedes Azpilicueta / Yael Bartana / Leah Beeferman / Bonaventure / Coalition of Care: Adelaide Bannerman & Daze Aghaji, Ain Bailey, Anna Tjé, Black Obsidian Sound System (B.O.S.S.), Katarzyna Perlak/Rebecca Bellantoni/Rowdy SS, Maija Baijukya / Tony Cokes / Jonathas de Andrade / Desto / Núria Güell / Mette Edvardsen / Terike Haapoja / The Hacker / Hlynur Hallsson / Honkasalo-Niemi-Virtanen / Horse Meat Disco / House of Disappointments / Max Jaarte / Jopo Simeon K / Antti Jussila & Jari Kallio / Karmaklubb*: DJ Baby Dyke, Harald & Louis, Karolinski, Konsept [X], Eva Rowson, Tine Semb / The Karrabing Film Collective / Keep it Complex / Valentin Kimstedt, Hatz Lambo & Varia Sjöström / Chris Kraus / Linda Lazarov / Lime Rickey International / Basim Magdy / Marepe / Mona Marzouk / Mr. A / Mythological Migrations: Chapter 1: The Nightclub: Tamara Al-Mashouk, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto / Hanna Ojanen & Yu Chuan / The Otolith Group / Jaakko Pallasvuo / Bhavisha Panchia / Plastique Fantastique / Anni Puolakka / Sepideh Rahaa / Kate Rich / Schoolboi Cute / Skuja Braden / Althea Thauberger / Vidisha S / Wekesa & Renaz
Curators & Advisors:
Ali Akbar Mehta, Marianne Savallampi & Vishnu Vardhan / Max Andrews & Mariana Cánepa Luna / Danai Anagnostou & Abdullah Qureshi / Lucy Badrocke / Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris, Marti Manen & Emmeli Person / Adelaide Bannerman / Eva González-Sancho Bodero & Per Gunnar Eeg-Tverbakk / Satu Herrala / Solvita Krese & Inga Lāce / Anders Kreuger / Kristiina Mäenpää / Tero Nauha / Paul O’Neill & Eliisa Suvanto / Mika Palonen / Marju Rotinen / Saskia Suominen / Paula Toppila & Päivi Matala