THE TENT,
An installation and a community art project
First version 1995.

The Tent is an umbrella project of our community art projects with
different ethnic and age groups. The project started from a dream.
Lea saw the installation in her dream, and we decided to realize the
dream. It took more than five years.

From 1991-1994, in a tent we had prepared ourselves out of lambs´
wool, we lived with our two little sons at various times alongside three
different cultures: in south-east Estonia amongst the Setukesians, in
Finnish Lapland with the Sami, and in northern Mexico in the Tarahumara
mountains with the Rarámuri. In each society, we contacted one family
whom we then visited several times. The length of the periods we stayed
with them varied from several days to three weeks. We documented our
visits with photographs, tape records and written notes. Our interest was
to think and examine our own social intercourse with families living in
three very different cultures. The Tent, a book of travels, published by
the University of Art and Design in 1999, is a written account of these
experiences.

Having prepared the Tent exhibition, we wanted to bring it back to those
villages where we were guests. In May of 1997, we were able to set up
the exhibition for a week in the gymnasium of the Obinitsa village school.
We talked of our visits to the Sami and the Rarámuri and we gave the
children exercises about the Setukesian culture. We visited Utsjoki in
Lapland, in order to hold a series of video-workshops. In fall 1999 we
visited our host Rarámuri Aboreachi, and had workshops at the rural
elementary school there.

SELECTED SHOWS
1999: Chopo Art Museum, Mexico City
Museum of Cultures in Northern Mexico Paquimé, Casas Grandes
INI, National Institute of Indigenous Cultures, Guachochi
Aboreachi rural school, Mexico
1997: Obinitsa village school, Setuland, Estonia
1996: Venny Soldan-Brofeldt Gallery, Järvenpää
1995: Lönnström Art Museum in Rauma
Art Museum of Hyvinkää
Gallery Kluuvi, Helsinki