IHME Project 2009:
Clay and the Collective Body
by Antony Gormley
20 March – 13 April, 2009
Pro Arte Foundation Finland
www.proartefoundation.fi
IHME PRODUCTIONS BRING PARTICIPATORY ART PROMINENTLY TO HELSINKI
IHME Project 2009: Clay and the Collective Body
The first cluster of IHME productions by the Pro Arte Foundation Finland will bring ground-breaking art prominently into the midst of everyday life in Helsinki. The event centres on Clay and the Collective Body, an IHME Project by Antony Gormley in the Kaisaniemi sports field and continues with the IHME Days for Art at the Old Student House, as well as IHME Edition, to be published the same week.
IHME Project Will Set a Collective Challenge to the Public
Sculptor Antony Gormley (b. 1950) will create a work in the sports field in Kaisaniemi park in Helsinki, bringing together clay and Helsinki locals in a specially erected pneumatic building. Clay and the Collective Body will feature a huge clay cube that will be both a challenge and a shared bodily experience. Designed specifically for Helsinki and realised for the first time here, Gormley’s work brings together Mass, Space and Energy in a response to the aims of the Pro Arte Foundation Finland: to ask questions about how art can be made and who it can be for.
The Clay and the Collective Body project will start with a huge clay cube the height of a small house and weighing 160,000 kilograms, housed in a well-lit, humidified pneumatic building. In the first phase of the project, the public will be able to view the constructed cube. In the second phase, the public will have an opportunity to work on and with the clay and to use it to make objects of any kind, big or small, alone or with others. Clay and the Collective Body will be open to all ages, sexes and ethnicities.
The key element in Gormley’s work is transformation – in this case of a universal material. In the course of the project, the clay will be transformed from a natural product into a constructed one, from an ordered, monolithic, integrated mass into a multiplicity of forms shaped by the collective mindscape and touch of the inhabitants of Helsinki.
Working with clay offers an opportunity for meditative, concentrated activity with an emphasis on non-verbal, bodily communication.
The public will be able to view the final result of the project from 4 to 13 April 2009. The schedule is still subject to change.
IHME Days for Art from 3 to 5 April 2009 at the Old Student House
The first public IHME Days for Art of the Pro Arte Foundation Finland will be held at the Old Student House in Helsinki from 3 to 5 April 2009.
The IHME Days will be launched on Friday, 3 April, when the public will have a chance to visit exhibitions and a bookstore put up for the weekend. Lectures and discussions on Saturday will explore Antony Gormley’s IHME Project. The themes in the morning will be: Who are making art? and Who is art made for?; in the afternoon Finnish representatives of art and science will discuss the question: How does a community emerge? On Sunday, the morning will be dedicated to expert views on the question: What is good art? The afternoon will feature a four-hour IHME marathon panel discussion with Finnish artists.
The speakers during the IHME Days will be invited Finnish and international experts, and also participants of the Gormley project. In the week preceding the IHME Days, the international artist of the 2010 IHME Project will be announced. The same artist will also design the IHME Edition for 2009, which will be released and – depending on the form it takes – also distributed during the IHME Days or the preceding week.
The detailed programme and schedule of the IHME Days will be published at the new Foundation website in January 2009.
