The days of our residency started very concretely with exploring two selected methods of embodied moving at the site, such as walking backwards or flocking, usually spending 20 minutes for each of them. Then we wrote notes and discussed, continuing after lunch with a third method. Later in the afternoons we concluded our learnings and selected what to do the next day. This structure allowed us to deepen our experiments, as it also allowed the members of our working group to flow in and out depending on other commitments. During the residency we explored e.g. how different tempo or rhytmic changes affect the methods or what new verbalizing can bring into them. We also tested how filming camera can be one of the experiencing objects, traveling from hand-to-hand as a moving and dancing element.
We have chosen Hiedanranta under our focus as we are interested in the dramatic change that the area is going through. Hiedanranta is to become the western center of Tampere with 20 000 new inhabitants to surround the former industrial red brick buildings, a manor and wooden villas by a lake. Many of the working group members have both a personal and professional relationship with the site. This has made it exiting to notice, how different knowledge emerges when one lets the rational thinking aside and tunes in to the experiential knowledge instead.
For example, it took a while for us to notice how restricted access pedestrians have at the moment in the area. This note came after admitting the oppressive feeling created by temporary fences. This lead us to explore the unpleasant fenced routes more in detail with the method of slow walking, which brought up another observation: it is actually very rare to be able to access construction sites like this, to walk accross them sheltered by the routes. The oppressive, yet sheltering pedestrian routes allowed sights out of ordinary, such as the dramatic view to the tramline under construction, with the iconic Tampere skyline as a backdrop (See photo above).
The residency days included also discussions on the motivations, aims and wishes of the working group, based also on our previous shared activities. This resulted in several future scenarios. Working group consists at the moment of Elina Alatalo from Insurgent Spatial Practices; Hanna Kahrola, Tuija Touhunen and Anna Kupari from FEMA artists; choreographer dancer, mentor Jaakko Simola; and dancer, film maker Mia Tiihonen.
Photo: Hiedanranta tram construction, photo taken through a construction site fence by Elina Alatalo