![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Pilvi-Takala-portrait-courtesy-of-the-artist.jpg\")
Pilvi Takala. Portrait courtesy of the artist<\/p>\n Pilvi Takala. Portrait courtesy of the artist<\/p>\n
Finnish artist Pilvi Takala is a master of infiltrations. Her videos often feature her performing\u00a0subtle acts of disobedience, never crossing legal boundaries but causing confusion and confrontation nevertheless. In \u201cReal Snow White\u201d from 2009, for example, Takala tries to enter\u00a0Disneyland in a full Disney Snow White costume, and gets herself banned from the premises.\u00a0Only children or adults employed by the park are allowed to wear costumes, security guards strain to explain while fans, oblivious to the fine difference, crowd her to get a photo.<\/p>\n
Takala is this year\u2019s winner of the Emdash Award, which funds a project by a young artist at London\u2019s Frieze art fair. Here she discusses preparations for a workshop with children,\u00a0which is at the heart of her project.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Interview by Hili Perlson<\/strong><\/p>\n Sleek: Why did you decide to work with children, and what are they supposed to do exactly? Who are the children? And you won\u2019t interfere no matter what they decide to do with the money?<\/strong> Whatever the money will be spent on, it\u2019ll be very meaningful for these kids. Hopefully, it will also be meaningful for a larger community, and the process itself will be meaningful for many. There are no requirements the project has to fulfil. It\u2019ll be art whatever they do, as it\u2019s presented at Frieze with the Emdash money. The only rule is that they have to decide collectively. That\u2019s the challenge. There are many models and methods of how to reach decisions in a group, and all of them have advantages and disadvantages. At the workshops, we\u2019ll explore different methods so they can pick the one that they feel is the most fair and useful. If it\u2019s a lesson in anything then it\u2019s a lesson in collective decision-making.<\/p>\n Are you trying to find some intuitive relation to money by working with kids?<\/strong> I guess. As an artist you can\u2019t plan everything and be in control because you end up with something closed and boring. That\u2019s my feeling. I guess its more natural for kids to be more intuitive. We will explain to them that they\u2019re part of the project, and that the money didn\u2019t fall from the sky. But they don\u2019t have this selfawareness of being watched by the art world.\u00a0<\/p>\n How do you convey the abstract idea of value to children? What if they just want to buy \u00a310,000 of ice cream? Are you prepared for chaos? Pilvi Takala\u2019s Emdash Award project is at Frieze London, Regent\u2019s Park, London, October 17\u201320 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n www.friezefoundation.org Pilvi Takala. Portrait courtesy of the artist Finnish artist Pilvi Takala is a master of infiltrations. Her videos often feature her performing\u00a0subtle acts of disobedience, never crossing legal boundaries but causing confusion and confrontation nevertheless. In \u201cReal Snow White\u201d from 2009, for example, Takala tries to enter\u00a0Disneyland in a full Disney Snow White costume, and…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11856,139],"tags":[981,977,978,115,982],"class_list":["post-10758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sleek-art","category-art","tag-emdash-award","tag-frieze-london","tag-frieze-projects","tag-hili-perlson","tag-pilvi-takala"],"acf":{"main_category":null,"legacy":"1","exclude_from_ads":null,"hero_title":null,"subtitle":null,"hero":null,"teasers":null,"facebook_image":null,"related_articles":null,"next_article":null,"sleek_card_focus":null,"content":null},"yoast_head":"\n
<\/strong>Pilvi Takala: They\u2019ll decide on how to spend the money. The award money is allocated for\u00a0a presentation at the fair, and to me it felt constrained: it reaches a wide audience, but mostly from the art world. It\u2019s a huge event, but also a closed bubble. So my initial thought was that it has to have a meaning outside the fair. I decided to hand over the decision over this budget to someone else, and I find decision making in a group an interesting theme. Then I decided it should be a group of children because children are never in a position to decide over budgets. This is an unusual opportunity, it\u2019s not your usual \u201cif you could, what would you do\u201d but a chance to actually realise a project.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/strong>They\u2019re kids between the ages of 10 and 12 from a youth club in Hackney Wick. It\u2019s beneficial that the kids have some kind of common ground. I\u2019m working with educator Polly Brannan, who\u2019s experienced with children and knows the hardships, and there are legal issues to consider\u2026 She\u2019s the practical side. If it were adults we could sit in a room for five days and talk, but here we need to be more active. The proposals must come from them. That\u2019s the most challenging thing \u2013 making\u00a0them understand that they can do whatever.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/strong>What are the important things for them? There\u2019s the decision-making strategy that will be developed, and then there\u2019s the intention \u2013 what do they really want. That\u2019s how artists always have\u00a0to work: some ideas are just too expensive so you want to do something cheap that\u2019s as good or even better. You have to find the core of the idea. If they propose something huge that\u2019s not in the budget, like going to the moon, we\u2019d tell them this could be impossible. That\u2019s a big part of the group decision \u2013 seeing what\u2019s valuable.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/strong>I\u2019m not worried about that. I\u2019m sure they have a lot of urgency to do a project and use the money.<\/p>\n
<\/a>www.pilvitakala.com<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"