Outsider Art Festival is produced by Pertti’s Choice, the outsider art production house founded by Pertti Kurikka’s Name Days. The OAF production team works at Pertti’s Choice in Hakaniemi, Helsinki.
The OAF team consists of Heini Merkkiniemi, Festival Director, Tuomas Vaahtoluoto, Producer and Communications Coordinator, Silja Pasila, Visual Arts Programme Producer, and Teuvo Merkkiniemi, Music Programme Producer and Pertti Choice of CEO (Chief executive officer).
This year’s new production intern is Satu Kankaanpää, who is studying cultural production for the third year at Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences. Although she has lived in South Ostrobothnia all her life, Satu’s blood is often drawn to the cultural life of Helsinki. Satu was asked about his expectations of festival work.
“When I saw the OAF 2023 Aftermovie, my first reaction was wow! It will raise my expectations, definitely something new, something I hadn’t imagined. Usually the art of marginalised groups is invisible, but the OAF brings them to the fore in a great way.
I get to meet different people and enrich my own cultural experience. I get to learn new things and develop my professional skills. Learning new things is the spice of life!”
Satu thinks that culture belongs to everyone is a simple but powerful statement.
“It is close to my heart. I would like to get the sign-language audience involved this year. My sign language community is just the language and cultural minority. We have history, customs, traditions, arts and culture. Sign language is not international as many people think. Finland has two languages, Finnish and Finnish-Swedish sign language.
Satu is also an artist. Satu’s art is sign language poetry.
“”I am one of the few sign language poets in Finland today. I create my own poems. I fell in love with poetry as a teenager. As a horse girl, I started writing poems in Finnish about horses. Since then, I fell in love with poetic performances in sign language, for example at Cultural Days for the deaf. My poems can be found in the Sign Language Library.
The OAF production team hopes the public will follow this OAF blog. Every week we will publish stories about the festival’s artists, workshops and programme content. See you at the 2024 Outsider Art Festival in August!
Photo: Anastacia Botvinova
Check out Satu’s poem Helsinki from the Sign Language Library here.
