Projects—Master PPS Performing Public Space

Jun 29

Jun 29 (RE)DESIGNING THE EXPERIENTIAL SPACE

Class 2019/20

My project focuses on how women can renegotiate their existence in public spaces. The public space is designed to suit the ‘body-at-home’ against which all other bodies are differentiated as the strange or the other. In the global north, this ‘body-at-home’ is a white, able-bodied, heterosexual cis man. His actions set the norm, through which the other bodies are defined, and his needs set the norm of how our cities are designed. This means, that the public space is not safe for, or empathetic towards, every body. My research looks specifically on how women can interrupt the norm to create change for equal distribution of power in public spaces. I attempt to find performative strategies to explore (my) experiential spaces, to find alternative ways of expressing (my) ‘womanness’, and to ask how the changes in (my) personal experiential spaces can create larger changes in the collective spaces. I want to find out how women can renegotiate and re-create their own experiential public spaces to a space of self-sureness. SPECIAL THANKS Thank you Karolina Zwierzyńska, Evelyn, Marta Lupa, Teo Łagowska and Aleksandra Chojenta for starting the revolution! Thank you, Cristian Medel for The Walk, Harsha Chawhan for the photography, and Virpi Velin and Hania Szymczak for the experiments and inspiration. Super thank you, David Limaverde for your guidance and for being my cheerleader when I lost faith.

SPECIAL THANKS
Thank you Karolina Zwierzyńska, Evelyn, Marta Lupa, Teo Łagowska and Aleksandra Chojenta for starting the revolution! Thank you, Cristian Medel for The Walk, Harsha Chawhan for the photography, and Virpi Velin and Hania Szymczak for the experiments and inspiration. Super thank you, David Limaverde for your guidance and for being my cheerleader when I lost faith.

ANNA OLKINUORA

Anna is a performance artist and a theatre maker with a strong emphasis on movement arts. She started as an actor at her local drama school when she was ten and is still on that same journey, endlessly searching, exploring and playing. Anna has studied and worked in England, India and Nepal. Navigating through different cultures and languages she has developed methods of story-telling that combine movement and written/ spoken word. Her work is feminist, gender political and norm critical. After years of creating work in traditional performance spaces, she now sees public space as a site of play, and is working on a project to reintroduce Helsinki to its residents through a series of performances.