The Construction

‘Our project is about process, meeting and the birth of a microcommunity. The work is divided into several phases of construction. In each phase, a new platform appears, enabling new forms of communication for those who have come to the square. First, a platform will appear, square and round at once, with tables and chairs for the first TSQ2 DEBATE, “The Future of the Square”, on 22nd August. Then this will disappear, and reappear in another form starting Monday 25th, and further levels and platforms and stages will be added. The new spaces will include a place for meetings and discussions, then a space for working together and, directly above it, one for recreation. Besides these, an art gallery for exhibiting works created by visitors will be constructed. We welcome artists and others to propose their projects! On top of all of this, a viewer’s/speaker’s platform for observing the environment and communicating with the world will soar into the sky. In this way, we will create something like an independent “micro-state”, a sort of self-developing organism intended to unite audiences and artists.’

Posted in Uncategorized, Works | Tagged #TSQ2, activism, artist, Checkpoint Helsinki, festival, perpetuum mobile, re-aligned, ZIP

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Mural by Ammar Abo Bakr

For TO THE SQUARE 2

Acrylic on canvas-like substrate, 10.8 x 7.9 metres

The theme of Ammar Abo Bakr’s work for To The Square 2 is a surrealistic play on the image of the cotton candy seller who becomes a kind of courageous general in the everyday battle against the pervasive authoritarian system. The work is a study of images in the collective memory of the social media space. The mural’s backdrop is a painted bullet-ridden wall, and several other layers were added successively. It includes iconic images from recent and ancient Egyptian mythology, history and anti-regime revolutionary culture.

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THE SQUARE newspaper

THE SQUARE
ISSUE #1
August 2014

Published as part of
TO THE SQUARE 2
#TSQ2

“The Square” newspaper is edited by Ivor Stodolsky, designed by Tzortzis Rallis (Occupied Times) and includes art by Ganzeer, Federico Geller, Vladan Jeremic & Rena Rädle and articles by Michel Bauwens, Nika Dubrovsky/ Feminist Pencil, Grey Violet (aka Maria Shtern), Núria Güell, G.U.L.F., Noah Fischer/Occupy Museums, Teivo Teivainen & Ivor Stodolsky, Telekommunisten and Nadya Tolokno (Tolokonnikova) of Zona Prava/Pussy Riot.

The Square is published as part of TO THE SQUARE 2 (#TSQ2), curated by Ivor Stodolsky and Marita Muukkonen and commissioned by Checkpoint Helsinki as part of Helsingin juhlaviikot / Helsinki Festival. It is the 7th iteration of Re-Aligned Project by Perpetuum Mobilε.

TSQ2 re-invigorates the question of public space as a crucial locus for the articulation of the political and the art of protest.

Direct link: http://issuu.com/ivorstodolsky/docs/tsq2_newspaper_hr

Posted in Discourse, News, Press, Timeline, Works | Tagged #TSQ2, Checkpoint Helsinki, Federico Geller, Feminist Pencil, G.U.L.F., Ganzeer, Grey Violet, Ivor Stodolsky, Media, Michel Bauwens, Nadya Tolokonnikova, Newspaper, Noah Fischer, Núria Güell, Occupy Museums, perpetuum mobile, pussy riot, re-aligned, Teivo Teivainen, Telekommunisten, To The Square 2, Tzortzis Rallis, Vladan Jeremić & Rena Rädle, Zona Prava

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PUSSY VS. PUTIN II Film in World Premier in Helsinki

PUSSY VS. PUTIN 2 World Premiere on the Lasipalatsi Square tomorrow 27th of August at 10 pm

This premiere/first cut of the second film by Gogol’s Wives presents a number of long episodes from the contemporary life and times of Pussy Riot, it’s leading figures Nadya Tolokinnikova and Masha Alyokhina and their circle from the very inside. It is the story of a protest that couldn’t be stopped even by imprisonment, but which turned the prison itself into a space of protest. It’s a movie about the shooting of the latest Pussy Riot clips “Like A Red Prison” and “Putin will teach you how to love the Motherland”, the only Russian political activism seen by the Sochi Olympic games – a showcase of Russian authoritarianism. It’s about the beginnings of the Zona Prava (Zone of Rights) NGO, which the two front-women of Pussy Riot founded after leaving prison and whose activity is devoted to a building organised resistance with the vast and unjust Russian system.

Pussy vs. Putin II is the second film by Gogol’s Wives on the topic, following their previous

Pussy vs. Putin, shot before the experience of incarceration of this (in)famous feminist punk band.

L SQUARE CINEMA: PUSSY VS. PUTIN II (world premiere) at 10.30 pm

TSQ2 DEBATE 10-10.30 pm: A panel with the director Taisya Krougovykh (via videolink) and guests including Grey Violet (queer activist from Moscow), Teemu Matinpuro (Finnish Peace Committee), Antti Rautiainen (anarchist activist), Teivo Teivainen (Professor of World Politics) and Ivor Stodolsky (curator, writer) and Anton Nikkilä (musician and researcher). Live on RADIO PRAVDA. https://www.re-aligned.net/radio-pravda/

Follow L SQUARE CINEMA:

Saturday, 30th of August, 10pm ART WAR, directed by Marco Wilms.

TSQ2 DEBATE at 10 pm: The protagonists Ammar Abo Bakr, Ramy Essam and Ganzeer (via video link) discuss the film. Päivi Mattila (Finnish Human Rights League) and Iida Siimes (PEN) join for the debate. Live on RADIO PRAVDA. The film screening will start at 10.30 pm.

Sunday, 31st of August, 10pm. INDIGNADOS directed by Tony Gatlif

Follow the To The Square 2 programme: https://www.re-aligned.net/tsq2-concept-programme/?lang=en

Posted in Map, News, Press

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Participate in Building a Movable Movie Chair

Mo-we-Mo-bil is a self-built experimental mobile cinema. It aims at (re)activating spaces in Helsinki by bringing people together for public screenings, intervening on relevant topics. It is made of a projection-unit on wheels and foldable chairs, which will be built in workshops in Kontula Kontupiste 24.-25.8. and the Lasipalatsi Square 26.-27.8.

Everyone is welcome to participate in building the chairs or join the screenings. To reserve your seat, we encourage you to build one!

Mo-we-Mo-bil is part of the To The Square 2 -project, curated by Ivor Stodolsky and Marita Muukkonen of Perpetuum Mobilε. It is commissioned by Checkpoint Helsinki as part of Helsinki Festival 2014. To The Square 2 connects seven artistic-political projects, a newspaper and a radio station, with contributors from across continents. The project will unfold in a series of events taking place on Helsinki’s central Lasipalatsi Square 18–31 August, and around the city.

raumlaborberlin is a Berlin-based collective of architects who have come together in a collaborative work-structure. They work at the intersection of architecture, city planning, art and urban intervention. See more on raumlaborberlin’s website.

To join, please send an e-mail to Aulis Harmaala (aulis@hiap.fi).

Schedule:

24.8. at 14:00-18:00 Workshop at Kontupiste
25.8. at 16:00-20:00 Workshop at Kontupiste , at 21:30 gathering at Kontula metro station for the film screening at Kontula
26.8. at 17:00-21:00 Workshop at the Lasipalatsi Square, at 21:30 gathering at Makasiinit, at 22:00 film screening on the bus drivers’ restplace wall
27.8. at 17:00-21:00 Workshop at the Lasipalatsi Square
28.8. at 21:30 gathering at Lasipalatsi Square, at 22:00 film screening under the Hakaniemi bridge
29.8. at 22:00 gathering at Lasipalatsi Square, at 22:30 film screening on the Helsinki Cathedral stair at the Senate Square

Location:

Kontupiste, Keinulaudankuja 4, 00940 Helsinki.
Tel. +358 44 557 7484
E-mail: jani.suonpera@lasipalatsi.fi
Lasipalatsin aukio (Mannerheimintie 22-24)

More information on To The Square 2 -event

Contacts for further information:

Curators:
Ivor Stodolsky, ivor.stodolsky@gmail.com, +358 (0)40 7254 050
Marita Muukkonen, maritamuukkonen@gmail.com, +358 (0)44 0965 103

Press:
Krista Kinnunen, krista.kinnunen@checkpointhelsinki.org, +358 (0)50 385 4555

Posted in Map, News, Press

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TSQ2 E-flux

CHECKPOINT HELSINKI / PERPETUUM MOBILE

Ganzeer, with added design by Tzortzis Rallis, “To the Square 2”. 2014. Poster. Courtesy of the artist/project.

TO THE SQUARE 2

22–31st August 2014

Lasipalatsi Square
Public space
Helsinki, Finland

#TSQ2 www.checkpointhelsinki.fi
www.perpetualmobile.org

TO THE SQUARE 2 (#TSQ2) re-invigorates the question of public space as a crucial locus for the articulation of the political and the art of protest.

Curated by Ivor Stodolsky and Marita Muukkonen
Commissioned by Checkpoint Helsinki as part of Helsinki Festival
The 7th iteration of Perpetuum Mobilε‘s Re-Aligned Project

From Tunis to Tahrir Square
From Occupy to Wikileaks and Blockupy ECB
From Gezi Park to Bolotnaya Square Moscow …

After the protest movements which broke out in capitals across the world from 2011 onward, we live in a period of reactionary politics and at times violent repression. The question today is, what would it take for people to go TO THE SQUARE 2 – that is, to take to the streets again? Do we need to see heightened extremes of economic inequality, ecological catastrophes, raw racism or an infinitely bigger “big brother”? Where are all those people who took to the square: pacified, in prison, in exile? For where did it all come from, and where does it go — that revolutionary energy?

TSQ2’s curators have commissioned new works by artists deeply involved in forms of resistance and movements “to the square” to grapple with these questions: Egypt’s famed and much-loved street artist Ammar Abo Bakr (Luxor/Cairo); Núria Güell (Barcelona), joining the project in absentia (as usual) from Cuba, with interventions in Europe’s economic dislogic; the renowned Palestinian artist Khaled Jarrar (Ramallah), who has defeated Israel’s travel-ban [link: https://www.re-aligned.net/khaled-jarrar-barred/] to create a public performance seeking 50 volunteers to match his 50-army-uniform strong installation; Vladan Jeremić & Rena Rädle (Belgrade), whose biting political satire, also seen in ArtLeaks (Jeremić is a co-founder), is uncomfortably reminiscent of 1914; Nikolay Oleynikov (Moscow), whose mobile “Radio Pravda” is an agitprop broadcast-collage in memory of the likes of Grosz and Benjamin; the urban transformers Raumlabor (Berlin) whose mobile cinema-theatre will stage interventions with Helsinki’s citizens; and the sincerely hilarious ZIP Group (Krasnodar) and its “wild constructivism” in the centre of Lasipalatsi Square.

The grand opening of all works will be on the 29th August, followed by a concert by the prominent singer of the Egyptian Revolution, Ramy Essam.

THE SQUARE, a new newspaper accompanying the project, is designed by Tzortzis Rallis (Occupied Times) and includes art by Ganzeer, Federico Geller, Vladan Jeremić & Rena Rädle and articles by Michel Bauwens, Feminist Pencil, Grey Violet, Núria Güell, G.U.L.F., Occupy Museums, Teivo Teivainen, Telekommunisten and Nadya Tolokonnikova of Zona Prava/Pussy Riot.

Full Programme (with locations):

https://www.re-aligned.net/tsq2-concept-programme/
https://www.facebook.com/events/737483989641891

Selections:

19–31st August RADIO PRAVDA https://www.re-aligned.net/radio-pravda/ [link as it is]

22nd Debate: THE FUTURE OF THE SQUARE.

24–27th Raumlabor WORKSHOPS for their “mo-we-mobile” cinema.

25–31st ZIP Group “CONSTRUCTIVISM”

25–31st TSQ2 artists talk to prominent HELSINKIANS

26nd JARRAR’s performative action

27–31st Ammar Abo Bakr paints a massive-scale CANVAS in the square

27th Vladan Jeremić & Rena Rädle start their GOOGLEHEIM project

29th GRAND OPENING and CONCERT with Ramy Essam featuring Paleface

L SQUARE CINEMA:

27th 10.30pm World premiere of PUSSY VS. PUTIN II by Tasya Krougovykh

30th 10.30pm ART WAR by Marco Wilms.

31st 10.30 pm. INDIGNADOS directed by Tony Gatlif

Following BACK TO (THE) SQUARE 1 [link: https://www.re-aligned.net/programme-b2square1/ ], TSQ2 is Perpetuum Mobilε’s second commission by Checkpoint Helsinki.

Checkpoint Helsinki is a new art organization that commissions and produces artworks by emerging international artists. checkpointhelsinki.fi/en, facebook.com/CheckpointHelsinki,

Perpetuum Mobilε, is a curatorial collective which brings together art, practice and enquiry. www.PerpetualMobile.org , www.facebook.com/PerpetualMobile.org

Curators

Ivor Stodolsky and Marita Muukkonen, Perpetuum Mobilε
perpetualmobile@gmail.com / T +358 (0)407254050, +358 (0)440 965 103

Press
International: Kathrin Luz kl@neumann-luz.de, T +49 (0)171 3102 472
Finnish: Krista Kinnunen krista.kinnunen@checkpointhelsinki.org, T +358 (0)50 385 4555

Posted in Uncategorized

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RADIO PRAVDA

RADIO PRAVDA I. Nikolay Oleynikov for the TO THE SQUARE 2 Project

Nikolay Oleynikov and friends on RADIO PRAVDA: Oxana Timofeeva, Jonathan Brooks Platt, Grey Violet, Lilu S. Deil, Ilya Yakovenko, Kirill Medvedev, Roman Osminkin, Ivor Stodolsky, Paleface, Olga Jitlina and Jon Irigoyen, Misha Griboyedow, Mokhnataya Podnoga (Shaggy Leg-up), Antti Rautiainen, Technopoesia, Kievskie Podmyshki (Kiev Armpits), Marina Maraeva, Arkadiy Kots Band, Artur Aristokisyan and many others. Some of the artists which have participated in RADIO PRAVDA are affiliated to the SCHOOL of ROSE (School for Engaged Art, Chto Delat). Some of their radio pieces are based on their participation in the School’s work.

RADIO PRAVDA roams the streets and squares of Helsinki: with living and dead, local and far-flung participants, inter-courses, location-stops and sound animating this mobilized broadcast station. How to reveal history’s truth (PRAVDA) in these antebellum days: the instants preceding calamity? What is art in the age of the digital reproduction of murder, poverty and forgetfulness? How can artists react to the media-onslaught during a period of catastrophe? When war became a factory for producing cadavers and the disabled, and the growth of radical poverty in the modern city, Georg Grosz, one of the most radical artist of the times of 1914, found that the world was changed forever. In 1921, Paul Klee’s Angelus Novus triggered Walter Benjamin’s allegory of history as an infinite catastrophe driving humankind to a moment of rupture. What kind of revolution could break the choice between despair and Benjamin’s oblivion blues? Artists inflame radical memory for the future. From the very personal perspectives of many, to the common struggles of each. Run by Nikolay Oleynikov and his friends, this moving monument is dedicated to history fucked by the real: Pravda emanating from a vehicle in the style of an early revolutionary agitprop train, or a tachanka of metaphorical images, of broken and even headless bodies, of the angels of memory and truth. Hark the antifascist ballades! the experimental bad-time stories and scary tales! the encyclopedia of protecting monsters! the queer blues rehearsals, unplugged gigs, anti-war poetry, partisan pod-casts, radical multilogues and personal rebel stories!

RADIO PRAVDA’s Route at TO THE SQUARE 2 (#TSQ2) in Helsinki, August 2014.

21st Aug THURSDAY 2pm – Lasipalatsi Square. 4pm – Hietaniemi Cemetery. Live Radio for the Dead 5.30pm – Sörnäisten metroasema / Helsingenkatu. Fix us 7pm – RADIO PRAVDA returns to Lasipalatsi Square (as always).

22nd August FRIDAY 1.30pm & 7 pm RADIO PRAVDA on the Lasipalatsi square 23rd August SATURDAY 4m – RADIO PRAVDA at Kontufestari (www.kontula.com) 7pm – RADIO PRAVDA on Lasipalatsi Square.

24th August SUNDAY

3pm on Lasipalatsi Square. Start of the last roaming tour of Helsinki with the artist of RADIO PRAVDA, Nikolay Oleynikov

7pm – RADIO PRAVDA (see above) on Lasipalatsi Square.

From 25th August MONDAY on and on: 3-channel Pravda

SELECTED “TO THE SQUARE 2” EVENTS WERE LIVE-BROADCAST ON “RADIO PRAVDA” and on Perpetuum Mobile’s Bambuser feed:

Your browser does not support iframes.

Posted in Works | Tagged #TSQ2, activism, artist, Checkpoint Helsinki, perpetuum mobile, Radio Pravda, re-aligned, russian, To The Square 2, war

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Breaking news: Khaled Jarrar is coming TO THE SQUARE 2, his travel-ban unexpectedly reversed

UPDATE: (see PRESS REVIEW at the very bottom)

KHALED JARRAR arrives at TO THE SQUARE 2

Photos: ow.ly/AniEa
Events: ow.ly/AniL7

EXCELLENT NEWS!!

At 8.30pm 12.8.2014, Khaled Jarrar successfully crossed the border on Allenby Bridge. He is now in Amman. He will be arriving in Helsinki in time for our first event on 14th at 6pm in Johan Tobias Studio, Suomenlinna Island. Welcome to his presentation on his new work: “On Power, Dis-/Obedience and War”. He will join Nikolay Oleynikov, whose will discuss his new mobile broadcast vehicle, “RADIO PRAVDA”.

Press Release 11.-12.8.2014

The Israeli Security Agency may have lifted the travel-ban imposed on Khaled Jarrar, an artist of the TO THE SQUARE 2 project. This sudden change in Jarrar’s status in the ISA’s (Shin Bet/Shabak)database, which determines whether or not he can leave the country, seems to be subject to unpredictable changes. The growing wave of international media attention may have played a role in this.

For his travel-ban on coming to Helsinki see: https://www.re-aligned.net/khaled-jarrar-barred/. For a full programme of TSQ2 see: https://www.re-aligned.net/tsq2-concept-programme/

Hints of this new development first came through a Ha’aretz journalist close to the case (http://www.haaretz.co.il/gallery/art/1.2402249). This now seems to have been confirmed by the District Coordination Office (DCO), according to the artist.

Khaled Jarrar still harbours doubts, however. To avoid the burning heat in which he was forced to wait last time he was turned back, he intends to approach the border this evening at 7pm (12.8.2014) on his way to Amman to catch his flight to Helsinki. “Khaled says he will not believe he can leave the country until he successfully crosses Allenby Bridge to Jordan”, say the curators of TO THE SQUARE 2 Ivor Stodolsky and Marita Muukkonen, who are in direct contact with him from Helsinki. This is the same border-crossing at which he was unexpectedly stopped and turned back earlier this summer, on his way to an opening at the New Museum New York.

It can only be hoped that he will be able to carry out his extensive plans for new art commissions for TO THE SQUARE 2 (facebook event here) and attend the first event he scheduled to participate in: “Meet the Artists of To the Square 2” on August 14.

TO THE SQUARE 2 (#TSQ2) re-invigorates the question of public space as the crucial locus for the articulation of the political and the art of protest.

Curated by Ivor Stodolsky and Marita Muukkonen
Commissioned by Checkpoint Helsinki as part of Helsinki Festival
The 7th iteration of the Re-Aligned Project of Perpetuum Mobilε

Venue: Lasipalatsi Square, Helsinki

Artists: Ammar Abo Bakr (Luxor/Cairo); Núria Güell (Barcelona), Khaled Jarrar (Ramallah); Vladan Jeremić & Rena Rädle (Belgrade); Nikolay Oleynikov (Nizhny Novgorod/Moscow); Raumlabor (Berlin); ZIP Group (Krasnodar).

THE SQUARE newspaper accompanying the project is designed by Tzortzis Rallis (Occupied Times) and will include art by Ganzeer, Federico Geller, Vladan Jeremić & Rena Rädle and articles by Grey Violet, Feminist Pencil, Núria Güell, Telekommunisten, Teivo Teivainen, Michel Bauwens, Occupy Museums and G.U.L.F.

Concept and Constantly Updated Programme:
https://www.re-aligned.net/tsq2-concept-programme/ /www.checkpointhelsinki.fi

PRESS REVIEW

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

http://www.haaretz.co.il/gallery/art/1.2402249

http://www.art-magazin.de/blog/2014/08/12/khaled-jarrar-getroffen-vom-krieg-gegen-die-kunst/

http://www.theartnewspaper.com/in-the-frame/#Jarrar’s travel ban means Helsinki is out of bounds

http://artdaily.com/news/72083/Palestinian-artist-Khaled-Jarrar-barred-from-going–To-The-Square-2–in-Helsinki#.U-sfVrkcSP9

http://www.tagesspiegel.de/kultur/israel-skandal-um-palaestinensischen-kuesntler-heimatarrest/10323716.html

http://www.vetogate.com/mobile/1132852
http://m.mc-doualiya.com/articles/20140716-خالد-جرار-فن-تصوير-منع-سفر-فلسطين-إسرائيل
http://www.skeyesmedia.org/ar/News/Palestine/4603

FINNISH PRESS

http://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/Israel+ev%C3%A4si+matkustusluvan+Juhlaviikkotaiteilijalta/a1407549923581

http://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/Palestiinalaistaiteilijan+tukijoukot+vetoavat+Suomen+ministereihin/a1407637209266

http://yle.fi/uutiset/israel_epasi_palestiinalaistaiteilijalta_luvan_lahtea_maasta__oli_tulossa_helsingin_juhlaviikoille/7403486

http://www.iltalehti.fi/ulkomaat/2014081018557835_ul.shtml

http://www.mtv.fi/uutiset/kulttuuri/artikkeli/israelin-turvallisuusviranomaiset-estivat-taiteilijan-tulon-helsinkiin/3872656

http://areena.yle.fi/radio/1655967

Posted in News, Press, Uncategorized | Tagged activism, activist, Checkpoint Helsinki, Israel, Khaled Jarrar, Palestine, re-aligned, To The Square 2, Travel-ban

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Meet the Artists of To The Square 2

Getting the ball rolling “to the square”, join this small gathering with the first artists to arrive.

Nikolay Oleynikov (Moscow) will introduce his RADIO PRAVDA project, a multi-channel nomadic broadcast for which he is open to proposals for broadcasting partners, interviewees, location-stops in Helsinki and even musi…c.

Khaled Jarrar (Ramallah) will reveal more details of his new participatory project “On Power, Dis-/Obedience and War”. Here you can learn more about volunteering for the performance on the 26th of August. This performative action sets out to question the military regimentation of the body, mass obedience and programmed behaviour, while emphasizing the responsibility of the individual, and the case for resistance and civil or military disobedience.

UPDATE: Jarrar will be present via videolink, unless he defeats the TRAVEL BAN put on him by the Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet) and arrives in time: ow.ly/A96Fw

A convivial conversation will follow, together with the curators of the project, the artists, the project team, volunteers and those simply curious…

Curated by Ivor Stodolsky and Marita Muukkonen, To the Square 2 is part of the Re-Aligned Project of Perpetuum Mobilε, commissioned by Checkpoint Helsinki as part of Helsingin juhlaviikot / Helsinki Festival. The project is realised in collaboration with HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme (On the Move Programme).

www.checkpointhelsinki.org/fi/ohjelma/to-the-square-2
www.re-aligned.net/press-release-square-2-takes-lasipalatsi-square-august
www.hiap.fi/event/square-2

HIAP Suomenlinna Studios
Studio Johan Tobias
Suomenlinna B 44
Thursday, 14 August, 6 pm

Ferries from Market Square: 5:20, 5:40, 6 pm,…
Nearest to building 34 on Suomenlinna map: http://frantic.s3.amazonaws.com/suomenlinna/2014/06/Matkailijankartta_EN.pdf

Curators: Ivor Stodolsky and Marita Muukkonen, tel. 040 7254050 and tel. +358 440 965 103, perpetualmobile(at)gmail.com

Posted in News, Press

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Breaking news: PALESTINIAN ARTIST KHALED JARRAR BARRED FROM GOING “To The Square 2” IN HELSINKI

UPDATE 11-12.8.2014:
TRAVEL-BAN ON KHALED JARRAR UNEXPECTEDLY REVERSED

Report on ArtDaily: http://artdaily.com/news/72083/Palestinian-artist-Khaled-Jarrar-barred-from-going–To-The-Square-2–in-Helsinki#.WA488LX9mkA

UPDATE 10.8.2014: Unless he defeats the travel ban put on him by the Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet/Shabak) and arrives in time, Khaled Jarrar will be present via videolink at “Meet the Artists of To the Square 2” on August 14, the first in the extensive series of events of TO THE SQUARE 2 in which Jarrar’s art plays a prominent part.

PRESS RELEASE 9.8.2014

Invited to Helsinki to open a large-scale new artwork and lead 50 volunteers in a performative action through the streets of Helsinki, the Palestinian artist Khaled Jarrar is stranded in Ramallah. The Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet/Shabak) has banned him from leaving Israel. His project is scheduled to open “no matter what”, say the curators of the project Ivor Stodolsky and Marita Muukkonen of Perpetuum Mobile(PM) whom Jarrar informed last night.

Jarrar’s work will form part of PM’S TO THE SQUARE 2 project, commissioned by Checkpoint Helsinki and part of Helsinki Festival, starting on 18 August and culminating on the 29 August with a grand opening on Helsinki’s square and a concert of the singer of the Egyptian Revolution, Ramy Essam.

Khaled Jarrar was previously in Helsinki for Perpetuum Labs II, which Perpetuum Mobile organised in December 2013 with Kallio Kunsthalle. In March 2014, he was played a prominent role in the first instance of PM’s Checkpoint Helsinki-commissioned project, also part of the Re-Aligned Project series, called BACK TO ~~THE~~ SQUARE 1.

Earlier this summer, Jarrar was turned back at the border on the way to his exhibition opening in the New Museum in New York. After a long wait on Allenby Bridge, he was informed that he would not obtain permission to leave before the 1st August. Now, they say, the ban has been extended until 1st September. If nothing is done, fears Jarrar, it will soon be the 1st January..

Khaled Jarrar is working with the leading Israeli human rights lawyer Lea Tsmeal regarding his situation. The curators are approaching various authorities and colleagues internationally.

Contacts for further information:

Curators: Ivor Stodolsky, ivor.stodolsky@gmail.com, +358 40 7254 050 Marita Muukkonen, maritamuukkonen@gmail.com, +358 44 0965 103

International Press Officer: Kathrin Luz kl@neumann-luz.de, +49 (0)171 3102 472

Finnish Press Officer: Krista Kinnunen, krista.kinnunen@checkpointhelsinki.org, +358 50 385 4555

Checkpoint Helsinki: checkpointhelsinki.fi/en, facebook.com/CheckpointHelsinki, twitter.com/CheckpointHki

Helsinki Festival: helsinginjuhlaviikot.fi/en

Perpetuum Mobilε’s Re-Aligned Project (Full Artists’ Bios, Curatorial Concept and News):
www.Re-Aligned.net, www.facebook.com/PerpetualMobile.org, twitter.com/PerpetualMobi

Posted in News, Press, Timeline | Tagged artist, Back To (The) Square 1, ban, barred, Checkpoint Helsinki, festival, Khaled Jarrar, perpetuum mobile, re-aligned

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THE SQUARE ISSUE #1 August 2014

THE SQUARE
ISSUE #1
August 2014