PÖYTÄ / TABLE
A collaboration with Lotta Djupsund and Noora Sandgren
Third Space Gallery
2018

“What seems to be needed is a certain willingness to appear naive or foolish, to affirm what Adorno called “clownish traits”. This entails, in my case, willingness to theorize events (a blackout, a meal, an imprisonment of chains, an experience of litter) as encounters between ontologically diverse actants, some human, some not, though all thoroughly material.” Jane Bennett, Vibrant Matter, 2010

PÖYTÄ / TABLE happened within a time and space related performative structure. As participants we committed to spending the agreed time together. From Monday to Friday the activities in the gallery were defined by different themes. Each participant contributed to the Table by bringing a question, a thought, a text, an object, an image or an entity related to their current artistic process. This was about being together, touching the boundaries of communication, shared silence in the midst of conversations and researching the possibilities an encounter may hold.

Through discussions the gallery space was turned into an arena of testing different ways and possibilities to be together when togetherness is understood in a very broad way. Visitors were free to choose their level of participation: one could listen, observe, spend some time in silence, challenge or bring something meaningful to the table. At the heart of the process was the willingness to share practices and study the negotiations, experiences and findings related to an open process. Traces born from this action based process could take form of a poem, a text, a photograph or small installation. 

Kastehelmi Korpijaakko, Noora Sandgren and Lotta Djupsund are visual artists that have a shared base within the medium of photography and the interest towards shared creative processes. PÖYTÄ / TABLE taking place in Third Space Gallery was their first artistic collaboration.