The Norm – Episode 1 deals with the actions and emotions connected to physically fitting the norm.

Throwback to the weight loss fad of the 90s: cling film wrapping in the laundry room, along with dry brushing/industrial cleaning products on skin. Wrapping was done in the sauna, under one’s clothes or before exercising and it is still used as popular means of weight loss for extreme definition before 2000’s “healthy is the new skinny -era”. The skin sweats under the wrap and removes fluids, thus creating an illusion of permanent changes in weight. However, no one ever told us that the change isn’t permanent, that toxins gather under the skin while wrapping. Nobody told us that it could lead to an allergic reaction at best and death at worst.

Wrapping doesn’t solve, neither does dry brushing cellulite.

An installation is built around this video work of domestic objects also displayed in the video to unite the inside and outside. It asks how immune/active players are we in these fads, where does the line of participant and a viewer end and what is the norm trying to fit the norm. When displayed its ultimate purpose is to unapologetically take space in institutions, something that is usually not allowed for marginalised bodies to do. With their work, as always the collective wishes to question what kind of voices, works or bodies are seen within the context of art.

DETAILS

FORMAT:
video, installation, soundscape

DURATION:
09:00 min

LANGUAGE:
ENGLISH / FINNISH

CONTENT NOTES

weight loss, violence, an heavy bass ambiance

ADDITIONAL CREDITS

Film production assistance : Fiona Eloné

EXHIBITED

Flow Festival /
August 2019

Ateneum Art Museum / October 2019 

is a session, a playlist with commentary.

It is a performative gesture to share personal experiences of/with/through music. It aims to create a space where you can submerge to the same intimate feeling of experience of privacy as well as the collectivity of listening to a song. 

hit different is a request for revolutionary loitering. Suggestion of a sweet stimuli and sensory experience as active effort and act of care.

Dance, cry, sing, sleep - if you want to.

Ongoing exploration of compassion

Ongoing exploration of compassion is in the center of this project moving onwards. It aiming to serve a space for critical engagement with the themes of compassion and performativity. This iteration specifically focuses on the often-overlooked emotional and intellectual labor involved in navigating acts of "compassion" rooted in performativity rather than genuine empathy. With this work, we invite participants to engage in a critical examination of their own experiences with compassion, both as recipients and as givers, within and across different cultural contexts.

DETAILS

FORMAT:
performance, poem, listening session

DURATION:
20:00 min

LANGUAGE:
ENGLISH

CONTENT NOTES

manifesto, loitering

ADDITIONAL CREDITS

Assistance of set up
at Difts - festival:
Ari Asp

EXHIBITED

Drifts - festival / September 2023

Night of Sience / January 2024

Private fundraising dinner for Palestine / February 2025 

"What will be left of our discos?

If there is no understanding of what nature looks/looked like, how do we imagine it?
What materials will it be built from?
Will all that remain be fire blankets, the remnants of fishing, and the mirror balls of millennials?"

Taking the time for self-reflection—examining and recognizing one's own flaws and strengths—helps an individual understand not only themselves but the world around them.

The healthier and stronger we are as individuals, the more resources we have to invest in the collective well-being of our communities. This allows us to re-establish our lost connection to the environment and discover more natural ways to live. For us, a good life means being grounded in ourselves and honoring our bodies, not contributing to false hyper individualism. It means developing our own communities and getting plenty and plenty of rest.

DETAILS

FORMAT:
installation

MATERIALS:
20:00 min

CONTENT NOTES

manifesto, loitering

EXHIBITED

Project was ordered for Puistokatu4 opening / August 2023

We place the lesbian-queer gaze at the center of the stage, directing works towards queer audiences and lesbian perspectives.

Lesbo Erotics is an artistic project founded in 2022 that organizes lesbian art events in Helsinki. The project explores lesbian and queer physicality and representation through dance and performance art.

In our work, we combine the conventions of stage art and parties into an experimental hybrid. We are interested in different audience relationships, where the audience has agency and where the traditional performance situation transforms into a multi-sensory spectacle.

The Garden Party is a series of performative garden parties where the working group acts as hosts and performers, inviting the audience to participate. In the garden, bodies, text, sound, and the environment create dramaturgies stripped of heteronormativity. Lesbo Erotics aims to dismantle the fetishization and invisibility of the lesbian body caused by heteronormativity. We seek queer logic within the context of contemporary dance and performance art and hosting space.

Thus far, parties have been produced with the following titles...

PART 1: Lesbian Courtship

POV: LESBIAN EROTIC THOUGHTS FORM IN RELATION TO EMOTIONAL REGULATION, JUDGEMENT AND CONSENT

While preparing for this party we were discussing what lesbian courtship is for us. Intense eye contact, poetry, and lingering caresses, tension, fully giving into and surrendering to the now of relationships, passions and excitements.

PART 2: Vibrations in relation

POV: LIQUID IDENTITIES, SHAKING BEING, SOLID INTENTIONS

Fighting post pleasure shame, talking about wants, needs, pleasures, desires, feels. Creating connections with friction and intensity. Wrestling, slippery lesbian bodies, bathing and playing in public.

PART 3: (after, community, self, take) care 

POV: GROUNDING CARE, MAGIC, RESISTANCE

While preparing to the third party we have practised and talked about boundaries, negotiation, consent and kink culture. About support, magic and its role in healing. Traditions, identifying and exposing patterns of power, relationships and pleasure.

PART 4, 2024: Still Thirsty

POV: LOW EFFORT; HIGH REWARD

While preparing for the party, we have been talking about things such as yearning, tension, almost kissing, moments before other moments, preparing, negotiation, fantasies, it being what it is but what even is it and suspense.

DETAILS

FORMAT:
performance, event

DURATION:
180:00 min

LANGUAGE:
ENGLISH / FINNISH

CONTENT NOTES

identity politics, sexual content

ADDITIONAL CREDITS

PERFORMANCE AND CO-PRODUCTION:

Moriamo Ahmed
Iiris Laakso
Johanna Karlberg
Kaisa Rajahalme

EXHIBITED

Helsinki Pride 2023 / Lapinlahden lähde

Helsinki Pride 2024 / Lapinlahden lähde

SPECIAL THANKS

PHOTO DOCUMENTATION:

Roza Ahmad, Patricia Carlitos, Säde Rinne & Sonia Dally

MADE POSSIBLE BY, FUNDINGS AND RECIDENCIES: Koneen säätiö, Kutomo

ALL COMMUNITY VOLUNTEERS!!

We place the lesbian-queer gaze at the center of the stage, directing works towards queer audiences and lesbian perspectives.

Lesbo Erotics is an artistic project founded in 2022 that organizes lesbian art events in Helsinki. The project explores lesbian and queer physicality and representation through dance and performance art.

In our work, we combine the conventions of stage art and parties into an experimental hybrid. We are interested in different audience relationships, where the audience has agency and where the traditional performance situation transforms into a multi-sensory spectacle.

The Garden Party is a series of performative garden parties where the working group acts as hosts and performers, inviting the audience to participate. In the garden, bodies, text, sound, and the environment create dramaturgies stripped of heteronormativity. Lesbo Erotics aims to dismantle the fetishization and invisibility of the lesbian body caused by heteronormativity. We seek queer logic within the context of contemporary dance and performance art and hosting space.

Thus far, parties have been produced with the following titles...

PART 1: Lesbian Courtship

POV: LESBIAN EROTIC THOUGHTS FORM IN RELATION TO EMOTIONAL REGULATION, JUDGEMENT AND CONSENT

While preparing for this party we were discussing what lesbian courtship is for us. Intense eye contact, poetry, and lingering caresses, tension, fully giving into and surrendering to the now of relationships, passions and excitements.

PART 2: Vibrations in relation

POV: LIQUID IDENTITIES, SHAKING BEING, SOLID INTENTIONS

Fighting post pleasure shame, talking about wants, needs, pleasures, desires, feels. Creating connections with friction and intensity. Wrestling, slippery lesbian bodies, bathing and playing in public.

PART 3: (after, community, self, take) care 

POV: GROUNDING CARE, MAGIC, RESISTANCE

While preparing to the third party we have practised and talked about boundaries, negotiation, consent and kink culture. About support, magic and its role in healing. Traditions, identifying and exposing patterns of power, relationships and pleasure.

PART 4, 2024: Still Thirsty

POV: LOW EFFORT; HIGH REWARD

While preparing for the party, we have been talking about things such as yearning, tension, almost kissing, moments before other moments, preparing, negotiation, fantasies, it being what it is but what even is it and suspense.

DETAILS

FORMAT:
performance, event

DURATION:
180:00 min

LANGUAGE:
ENGLISH / FINNISH

CONTENT NOTES

identity politics, sexual content

ADDITIONAL CREDITS

PERFORMANCE AND CO-PRODUCTION:

Moriamo Ahmed
Iiris Laakso
Johanna Karlberg
Kaisa Rajahalme

EXHIBITED

Helsinki Pride 2023 / Lapinlahden lähde

Helsinki Pride 2024 / Lapinlahden lähde

SPECIAL THANKS

PHOTO DOCUMENTATION:

Roza Ahmad, Patricia Carlitos, Säde Rinne & Sonia Dally

MADE POSSIBLE BY, FUNDINGS AND RECIDENCIES: Koneen säätiö, Kutomo

ALL COMMUNITY VOLUNTEERS!!