The Social Choreography Lab Helsinki is a project of Jon Irigoyen with the collaboration of Emma Hovi. The Lab collaborate with different agents as dancers, performers, educators, artists and so on to provide a flexible and transdisciplinary approach to the workshops, gatherings and different events organized within.
ORGANIZERS
Jon Irigoyen
Jon Irigoyen (Bilbao, 1978) is a Basque-Spanish artist, storyteller and researcher. Since 1996 he has lived and worked in different cities such as Madrid, Bristol, Barcelona and Helsinki, where he currently resides. Irigoyen has been a board member and organizer of the Festival Pixelache Helsinki since 2009, and a member of the visual artists' association MUU since 2017. He is one of the founding members of the Cluster for Critical Artistic Research (CCARe), hosted by Aalto University since 2019. Currently, Irigoyen serves on the board of the performing arts association Esitystaiteen Seura based at ESKUS Performance Centre, Helsinki.
His research interests and artistic projects span the intersecting relationships between embodiment and political life, autonomy, celebration and ritual. Recently his work has focused on the political and social power of movement through the concept of Social Choreography, which forms the backbone of his current doctoral research at Aalto University, Finland. Since 2020, Irigoyen acts as the director of Social Choreography Lab Helsinki, a collaborative artistic experiment at the intersection of movement and political life.
As an artist and curator, he has participated in conferences and given workshops internationally in countries such as Germany, Finland, Sweden, Poland, Spain, Lithuania, Colombia, Latvia, Ireland, Russia, Georgia, Peru, Mexico, the United States and Denmark. He has been selected in different residences as curator, TempleBar Gallery (Dublin, 2011) and artist, ANA Art space (Copenhagen, 2017). Among others, he has curated the exhibitions: Intimate Inmensity Musterzimmer Gallery (Berlin, 2012) and The worker's hand. HIAP Gallery (Helsinki, 2013). He has participated in solo exhibitions, There's always room for one more. Oksasenkatu Gallery (Helsinki 2013), Breaking my tableware. Sodų Gallery (Vilnius, 2017); as well as collective exhibitions, Mäntän Kuvataideviikot (Mänttä, 2015). He has taken part in different festivals among which MANIFESTA10 Biennial (San Petersburg, 2014), Narracje Festival (Gdansk, 2015) or Tbilisi Triennial (Tbilisi, 2015) stand out.
In 2015, he was a finalist in the VISIBLE AWARDS with the project Nasreddin in Mobile Discotheque, in collaboration with the artist Olga Jitlina.
Irigoyen is currently developing his doctorate in artistic research at Aalto University under the supervision of Professor Kevin Tavin, Head of the Department of Art. The artist and choreographer Michael Klien, Associate Professor at Duke University, is his current advisor. Previously, his research was under the supervision of Tero Nauha and Italian philosopher Franco Berardi (Bifo).
His artworks can be found in public art collections such as Suomen Taideyhdistys, The Art Collection of the town of Mänttä-Vilppula, and in multiple private art collections.
Irigoyen's body of work has been generously supported by:
Arts Promotion Centre Finland, Spanish Embassy in Finland, Finnish Cultural Foundation, Frame, Nordic Culture Point and Kone Foundation among others.
jon.irigoyen@aalto.fi
More info: http://www.jonirigoyen.com
Emma Hovi
Emma Hovi (1989, Vasa, Finland) is an artist and art educator with a background in continental philosophy. She received her formal education in Berlin, Montréal, Vienna and Helsinki, where she currently works and lives.
Her experience as art educator spans work both in public schools, museums and other cultural institutions. She has worked with the most established Finnish contemporary art museums, where she has been part of artist collaborations and created pedagogical concepts and workshops for various audiences. She is part of staff at the art center Annantalo in Helsinki and EMMA - Espoo Museum of Modern Art. Since 2019, she has worked on a research project investigating monstrosity and Otherness in pedagogy through the arts under the guidance of philosopher Dr. Tyson E. Lewis.
Hovi's artistic practices are based in drawing, photography, performance, and text. She is interested in feminine-coded labour, boredom, and performativity as it pertains to social belonging. She has been selected for community art projects and group exhibitions in Finland, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden and Hong Kong. Her essays and illustrations have been published in various outlets, including Ante and NO NIIN Magazine.
Since 2020, Hovi has co-organized Social Choreography Lab Helsinki, a collaborative artistic experiment at the intersection of movement and political life based at The Performing Arts Center Eskus in Helsinki. She has also served on the board of the feminist cultural journal Astra and facilitated writing workshops internationally.
Currently, she is working on her upcoming exhibitions in Stockholm Museum of Laundry in Huddine, Sweden, and Pesula Galleria housed in the former Nikkilä Mental Hospital in Sipoo, Finland. The exhibitions are generously supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation and the Swedish-Finnish Cultural Foundation. Her work has further been supported by Arts Promotion Center Finland.
hoviemma@gmail.com
More info: https://emmahovi.com/