KUVA article

St. Petersburg Summer School 2009

The first summer school for young artists, organised in cooperation by the
Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, the Smolny College and CEC Artslink, took place
in St. Petersburg, Russia, over June and July. The experience was a positive
one, and hopefully the project will be continued.
Emily Newman, artist and director of the summer school, invited a community of
international experts, faculty and students to examine the geography of
contemporary art from the perspectives of history and the future, and to
consider the Avantgarde against their own practice and on current discourse in
general.
From the Russian perspective, an important goal of the summer school was to
build bridges for the community of St. Petersburg’s young artist and global art
communities. For the young artists of the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, the city
that used to be considered mythical and distant, and its young artists, gained a
more real-life essence.
The attendants from the Academy included Liisa Roberts as an instructor and
students Sarah Gerats, Henna Hyvärinen and Lauri Kolttola.
Henna Hyvärinen talks about her experience in St. Petersburg:
“For me, the three weeks I spent in Russia meant hard work, sore feet, mushroom
soup and sweet instant coffee. The most memorable moment must have been the one
running down the stairs of the building where Russian avant-garde artists used
to have their studios, and trying to catch the last metro after an intense but
very hospitable evening with an older generation painter, who had wild stories
to tell. During my stay in Russia I never learnt how to say ‘sorry’ in Russian,
but I did learn to say ‘thank you’.”
Riikka Stewen