(In the picture: Pertti’s Choice and Kyrö Distillery Company’s teams worked on the worst fears of working life at Kalevi Helvetti’s workshop at Kyrö Visitor Centre.)
Outsider Art Festival is produced by Pertti’s Choice, a production house for outsider art and a social enterprise founded by the punk band Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät (PKN). The festival is organised in partnership with the Autism Foundation and Kukunori ry. Proceeds from the events are used to employ people with special needs. OAF is looking for new paths to employment and creates new work together with the creative sector and the hard-to-employ. The True Equality employment programme, launched by Pertti’s Choice and Kyrö Distillery Company, brings in responsible companies and supports the employment of around 100 people in the cultural and hospitality sector this year.
To celebrate the holiday, OAF team members listed what is most important at work. The list included clear workplace values, structures, a good atmosphere and plenty of room for creativity and diversity. OAF team members particularly enjoy the meaningfulness of work, working with art and artists, and value well-being and humour. “The creative industries have a lot of potential for job development and employment and OAF is an excellent example of this,” says Heini Merkkiniemi, the festival’s director. “The theme of being an outsider feels topical and important to us. The way the world is going worries us and we all have a lot of fears. Yet we are not going to be discouraged, we are happy that we can do good things with good people. We have good energy and anarchy in our team, we have fun taking over urban spaces, and making noise for those who can’t do it themselves. It is also important to us that in OAF’s work, that responsibility is translated into action rather than mere rhetoric. Meaningful encounters, stories, actions and collaboration will achieve better results than ranting. This is what we will continue to focus on this year.”
Sami Helle, a founding member and a salesperson of Pertti’s Choice, and also a OAF music curator, believes that the most important thing is to find suitable jobs for everyone. “We need to find jobs for all of us. I’ve really liked it when we have young people working for us, it’s nice to give them opportunities. I want to encourage everyone who likes this job. When I see that there is enthusiasm, I try to be positive and give lots of good feedback.” Arttu Partinen, who works in a shop with Sami, produces music events for Pertti’s Choice and OAF. “Thomas Röske, the president of the European Outsider Art Association (EOA), gave us a good speech in 2022, and said that although outsider art traditionally comes from a rather dark background, we here in Finland have somehow managed to find our own humorous and anarchistic approach to outsider art. I fully agree with this and this kind of thinking inspires me every day. Even though the operation is commercial, it is important to me that we don’t exploit anyone and in the evening you can go to bed feeling good about yourself. A good atmosphere at work is positively reflected in everything else in life.”
