In the earlier stages of Kahviland project we have visited Northern Norway, Sweden and Finland. The project has been carried out as several tours and we have set up a laboratory in a museum or art hall for one week at each location. The different themes of various laboratory weeks have been: Coffee culture and coffee as material (Aine Art Museum, Tornio), Coffee breaks and effectivity at work (Luleå Konsthall, Sweden), Coffee visits at homes (Pikene på Broen, Kirkenes, Norway) and Coffee at meetings (Korundi, Rovaniemi Art Museum).
During the laboratory weeks the audience have had a possibility to experience the open process of the artist: the inspiration (coffee drinking with different groups of people), the production of scripts (the writing and publishing of event scores) and watching and maybe also participating in a performance (the realisation of the event scores). Some audience members have been active participants by drinking and serving coffee in their own homes and participating in a group score.
Before the tour we set a list of questions, which we wished to be able to answer later on. Is the coffee drinking culture similar in the Nordic countries and what are the specialities in each of the countries? Why is it so that the Nordic people top the statistics as the heaviest coffee drinkers in the world? Does this tell something about the Nordic culture as a united culture? There are some smaller differences and lots of similarities in coffee drinking cultures in these three countries. Yes, we all love coffee. And we love to talk about coffee while drinking it. In this project we found out that coffee is a great tool to get an access into the new communities and a great topic to start a conversation with unfamiliar people. Coffee is literally an icebreaker.
After the tour we collected the written scores, documentations of the various encounters and performances and published them as a book. The book presents coffee scores for the readers to make their own interpretation, their own performances, if they will and track down how the notion of a performance score developed during our tour through the Kahviland.
To order the book, press here.
About the artists
Leena Kela (born 1979 in Kuusamo, Finland) is a performance artist who also works with performance art pedagogy, photography and video. In her work she wants to approach the other and the concept of otherness. How does a human being, an animal, nature or even self manifest itself as other?
Kela has studied at the Crossing Borders in Performing Arts BA degree programme in Turku Arts Academy (2003) and MA in Performance Art and Theory MA from the Theatre Academy in Helsinki. Currently she is a regional artist.
Her performances have been presented in a number of contexts in Finland and internationally in performance art festivals in Canada, Russia, Spain, Germany, Poland, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Estonia.
Kristina Junttila (born 1977 in Tromsø, Norway) is a performance artist whose work is concentrated on site-specific and community based performances and events, especially focusing on the meeting between everyday life and art. Her practice includes writing, directing and teaching.
Junttila has studied theatre, visual arts and pedagogy in Copenhagen, Tromsø, Dartington, Turku and Helsinki. She has a BA degree in Applied Theatre from Turku Arts Academy (2006) MA in Performance Art and Theory MA from the Theatre Academy in Helsinki. Currently she is doing her PhD in performance pedagogy at the University of Tromsø.