LOCAL & DECENTRALISED
Pixelache Festival in Suvilahti Helsinki, 22nd-24th September 2017
After the 2015 festival that travelled through Living Spaces, and the 2016 festival delving deep into Interfaces for Empathy, Pixelache festival 2017 gathers stories of Local & Decentralised governance. Tapping in to the shift from centralised -capital based economies to de-centralised -peer based resource distribution, we offer the festival as a meeting point for local initiatives working on similar experiences.
The festival is titled Local & Decentralised and it happens from 22.9 to 24.9 in Suvilahti, Helsinki. Local and decentralised governance seems to happen when collective design and a tangible group effort come together. In order to decentralise temporally the festival and to materialize the festival theme itself, reflecting perhaps on the current edification of Helsinki, Pixelache Helsinki hosts an open forum for collective design and construction of a temporary venue, versatile and open to multiple uses. These new spatial configurations along with existing DIY area such as the skate-park coagulate together with the festival participants to create fluid places where knowledge can emerge and where it can be applied.
Pre-festival and festival activities will happen also at Oranssi premises from 18.9 to 24.9. The role of Oranssi organisation, of Suvilahti permanent tenants and of Pixelache members' contributions as part of the main program, is an important element for the identity of Local & Decentralised.
Major developments of decentralization can and do occur: currency, energy, resources, and feelings are being decentralised and distributed. These developments bring about problems that cannot be solved on a purely conceptual level; they need to be embodied and lived through for a shift to yet different models. Thus fear of the unforeseen and unpredictable must also be addressed.
From the festival activities stories emerge that depict how governance functions between civil society, individual initiatives and government, and also how citizens themselves coagulate into structures where governance happens locally, and where we can come to terms with inefficiencies, passivity, interests, time, jargon.
How is it possible to express a multiplicity of will, is the present practice of a State effective enough to convey it? Often the movements towards local and decentralised structures are related to privatisation in economical models, how can diverse collective interest meet on economical terms? Can we be local and decentralised and yet be connected globally, micro-organisms breathing within a vast complex macro system?
Local & Decentralised festival does not let you down, it will be your local event to differentiate consensus from silence: talking of ecological issues, promoting visual culture as a shield against pessimism, presenting how democracy benefits from digital media -or not, playing games to prove that we are as connected as we are, offering workshops to learn again the pleasure of learning things together, finding music and contemporary art that make sense more than science, and divulging science as creative as drama.
The festival is free entrance and suitable for families.
VENUES, PLACES AND SCHEDULE
--- Pre-festival activities in Suvilahti and Muu gallery
At Sauna building and at Oranssi in Suvilahti, workshops days 19 and 20.9.
At Muu ry, exhibition Pixelache and Koelse 15 years: opening day 21.9. at 17:00.
--- Local & Decentralised festival program in Suvilahti
At Oranssi building, from 22.9 to 24.9.2017
At Sauna building, from 22.9 to 24.9.2017
CONTACT FESTIVAL COORDINATOR
Egle Oddo, egle@pixelache.ac
Pixelache 2017 Festival Local & Decentralised is supported by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, the City of Helsinki Cultural Office, Svenska kulturfonden, AVEK The Promotion Centre for Audiovisual Culture and Genelec.