9 Possible Portraits is made out of nine performances that are snippets of my own personal experience in nine different European cities. When I say “personal experiences” I mean my personal visions, which were framed by the constructed perspectives of reality I had contact with during the project Global City – Local City. By using the word “possible” in the title and by using it also as a practice, I intend to move way from the construction of a city based on totalization and homogenization. I intend to stay away from ideas of uniformity. I want to state that several artistic choices were made during the dramaturgical process that led me into one among many possible portraits of a city experience. Regarding the process, I should mention that this work has been driven by actions of extraction and removal – what I think of as artistic archeology – on which I take away materials from its contexts and work them, creating new situations where different meanings and senses are evoked.
When we think of a city, we immediately imagine public spaces: streets, squares, museums and shopping malls. However, as much as it is a public space, for its residents the city is an accumulation of private spaces. This hidden vast network opens up only when you gain trust of the city residents. In this Lab, we will meet and spend time with Helsinki residents in their private spaces. For many of us in the art field, at some point a conflict emerges between private and public, or professional, lives. How do we balance the families and careers? How do we define ourselves outside of the professional realm? Do we have a right for private life? How do we define and deal with private in art and in politics? We asked Helsinki hosts to share their views and strategies on this subject.