Pro Arte Foundation and the Place for Art

Image: 'Clay and the Collective Body', Pro Arte

The Finnish art scene has welcomed an interesting new voice. Pro Arte Foundation's mission is to offer experiences and sensations, improve our quality of life, strengthen communities and help us understand our differences. Pro Arte was founded 2007 and its work is built around the IHME Productions, IHME Days and IHME Edition. The IHME productions consist of a wide variety of international art projects and installations set in public spaces in Helsinki.

The very first IHME project, Antony Gormley's 'Clay and the Collective Body' brought together 1300 people in Helsinki's Kaisaniemi moulding a cube of clay weighing 100 000 kilos.

British sculptur Gormley (b.1950) studies personal space and the relationship between collective body, self and others in his large-scale installations. Gormley's 'Clay and the Collective Body' project is a continuation to a series of works focused on looking at community started 1990. The artist for the 2010 Ihme Production will be Scottish sound artist Susan Philipsz.

One of the sources of inspiration for Pro Arte Foundation has been London-based Artangel. Artangel produces ambitious commissions to places outside the institutional places for art. In collabortion with Pro Arte, the Finnish Institute in London was pleased to invite Artangel's co-director and founder James Lingwood as one of the keynote spakers to the IHME Days.

Lingwood told the Finnish audience how Artnagel has, together with the numerous artists the agency has worked with over the past 15 years, given way to new places to be explored for art, be it in empty shops or entire seaside towns. The aim of Artangel, Lingwod pointed out, is to create "meeting points for the imagination". Pro Arte Foundation has certainly created a place for the imagination on the Finnish art map.

Enquiries:
http://www.proarte.fi
http://www.ihmeproductions.fi
http://www.artangel.org.uk