Tuesday, 19 May 2015

Your perspective - an invitation


Hembygdsfönster/Kotiseutuikkuna/Districtwindow
A project by Twotoo - Kaksinainen
From May to June

Svenska kulturfonden and Pargas stad



What do you think touches us? What does it mean ”to be touched”?
It happens to us all:
that we are connected, in dialogue. That we get responses on our ”being there”, resonating within the surrounding we live in.
The moment we get in deep contact with our authentic identity, that means with the person we really want to be and agree with, this moment evokes a warm and satisfying feeling in us. It cannot be experienced in exactly the same way ever again, thus the feeling possibly occurs in many other moments within different contextes . Any impuls is unique, though as far as we have learned to open up for resonating towards the world, we might feel repetition in impuls and reaction.
We dont need to react or feel touched. Anybody but ourself decides, if we get into dialogue with the situation or not.
Music, movements, architecture, landscapes, relations, physical action, words, forms, accidents, sensations of any kind: these are possible impulses to react on.
Stories of another person can lead us onto the path towards our own story.
If both , the storyteller and the receiver commit to the whole situation, in context and outer setting, they can become linked in a wonderful way. While one story is on its path of construction, a whole puzzle of memories, links, historical facts and personal data is set out. While listening, another level of own memories and stories, a parallel world in the same universe, is appearing. The space is resonating of the people breathing in it and vice versa, the people are moved innerly by reacting on outer action.
That is what happens to me, doing Performance with body and mind at place. They are mostly framed actions and improvised reactions, that are composed in the moment.

That is what happened to me, when I was meeting Liisa Ake-Helariutta together with Arja Maarit Puhakka as Twotoo-Kaksinainen in the process of the Perrformance project Hembygdsfönster/ Kotiseutuikkuna/ Districtwindow on Thursday 14th May 2015.

We put the window on place, walked across the park towards her flat and rang the doorbell.
Warmly welcomed with a hug and sunshine coming in from a huge balcony window behind, we sat down to explain how we put the frame and to state that her personal Hembygdsfönster is now there to invite people taking over her perspective for a while.
This is what happened then:
During the time I listened to her stories, I saw my family sitting in my grandparents kitchen, blue white porcelan and fresh bread on the breakfast table. My grandmother and aunt tried to hide tears, while my grandfather spoke out, to me, a ten years old german girl in 1982: ”ja ja, there is nothing to talk about the past . Nothing for you my child to listen to. Terrible, ja ja. So who wants a piece of bread?” A paradox situation. The words totally opposite to the bodies , gestures and faces, sitting there with me at the kitchen table. I knew that my grandfather was 7 years in prison in Russia, during and after World War II. He managed to escape, one day appearing at my grandmothers door, being only a skeleton of a person. A mirracle, that forbid any story telling until the death of my beloved grandfather. A man, who was great in making marmelade and juice, a carpenter with a strict mathematic brain, a clown, counting numbers in Russian language and singing out loud ”Jodel songs ”in the woods. My grandfather and his strict and a bit cold wife, my grandmother, were with us while we were sitting in Pargas , looking through Liisas windowframe on a time far away from now and yet, so close.
That is what is one of Hembygdsfönster's intensions. A windowframe put to evoke dialogue, confrontation and resonating hearts and minds.
The action we ask for is in our days of 2015 not such a usual one:
TAKE SOME TIME, WALK TO A CERTAIN PLACE, SETTLE DOWN, TAKE MORE TIME, LOOK, LET IT RESONATE TO YOUR OWN BODY AND MIND, LISTEN TO STORIES, ACCEPT THE PERSPECTIVE OF SOMEBODY ELSE, STAY CRITICAL, GET ACCESS TO YOURSELF.

I have developed a wish in the last days:

Let us bring the Hembygdsfönster closer to the youth!
How does a window resonate in us, put by a 13/14 years old? What story does it tell?
How lovely to be able to switch again into the perspective of youth. Or will it be strange for us, parents and grown ups?
Be invited to ask your kids to propose places for Hembygdsfönster/ Kotiseutuikkuna. Only the discussion at home, maybe followed by a walk through town, might be a fruitful way of spending time together.

For my part I am full of memories these days, wondering how easy it is to allow touch and how much we can motivate each other to see, what is.

Remember to contact us , in case you want to share this project with us. 
Thank you

Susanne 

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