2015 » Finland » Performing Space

KOKIMO: Series of Spaces III - Ubiquitous Prague

KOKIMO is preparing a site-specific performative piece (a walk) for the Performing Space exhibition at the 2015 Prague Quadrennial. The piece will be inspired by the space in which it will be performed – the architectural space and the multi-layered city space surrounding it. The group is interested in exploring the intersection of architecture and staging: spatiality, theatricality and experientiality.

The performance will explore how architecture and space are experienced in various contexts. For example, how does the history of a built environment or foreign auditory stimulation influence our experience of a place? What does it feel like to act unexpectedly within a certain urban context? The performance attempts to show how different layers of time, space, experience and imagination are present in a place, and aims to bring some of these layers to the surface, making them more intensively perceptible using a performative structure.

In all of KOKIMO’s performances, the group’s members work as technicians, performers and co-participants, enabling a shared and lived experience.

The performance lasts one hour and is for approximately 10 participants at a time.

Members of KOKIMO *Markus Heino (born 1978, Turku) is a Helsinki-based freelance sound-designer (MA). He works with performances, radio and video art. *Raisa Kilpeläinen (born 1979, Kajaani) is a scenographer and lighting designer (MA). She works as a freelancer in theatre, dance and live art. Kilpeläinen also works as a teacher at the Helsinki Theatre Academy. *Veera-Maija Murtola (born 1980, Oulu) is a scenographer (MA). She works as a freelancer in theatre, dance and live art. *Anna Pöllänen (born 1979, Outokumpu) is a lighting designer (MA). She works as a freelancer in contemporary dance and theatre and as a technical director at the Zodiak Center for New Dance. About KOKIMO The KOKIMO collective was founded in 2010. All members of KOKIMO work actively as professionals in the fields of theatre, dance and live art. Democratic collaboration among equal artists forms the core of KOKIMO’s working ethics. By using performative methods, interventions and gestures, KOKIMO explores people’s relationships with their environment. In KOKIMO performances, the emphasis is on multi-sensory experiencing, not merely on viewing and hearing. There is no traditional auditorium with seats and one viewing point. Instead, every participant has their own living and breathing “inner auditorium”, their own mind and body. The name KOKIMO is a word play in Finnish – it can be translated as “a place to experience something in”. KOKIMO works site-specifically and site-sensitively, without heavy structures or large production organizing, using material resources economically and ecologically, and cherishing the idea of sustainability. In all of KOKIMO’s performances, the group’s members work as technicians, performers and co-participants, enabling a shared and lived experience. In June 2011, KOKIMO participated in the Architecture Section of the Prague Quadrennial with the site-specific piece “Series of Spaces – an Organic Interpretation of a Temporal Journey in Space.” The piece was one of the first experiential performative interventions at the PQ’s architectural exhibition.