What: Utopia Soirée
Where: Tahmela’s Villa
When: 17.8.2024 15:00-22:00
Tickets: €10-25 based on your financial situation (limited number of €5 tickets available for people with low-income)
Utopia Soirée is a one-day mini-festival taking place on Saturday, August 17, 2024, at Tahmela’s Villa in Tampere. The event will feature three wonderful artists, vegan pancakes, dreaming open mic, and talks about utopias.
Utopia Soirée is a collaboration between two collectives dreaming of a different future, Sysäys and Vita Nuova. It is a gentle and warm counteraction against isolation, hopelessness, indifference, and extradition. The evening looks at the world through a queer lens, seeks hope based on knowledge, life from the ruins of capitalism, and sparks of resistance—reminding us that we are not powerless, as we have each other.
Come and make this utopian evening a reality with us!
Tickets
Get your pre-order ticket here! Ticket price €10-25 based on your financial situation. Also 5 € tickets for people with low income available. Please reserve your low income ticket via email sysayskollektiivi@gmail.com.
Schedule
15:00-22:00 Collective Dream Map Workshop
15:00-22:00 Zine workshop
15:00 dj emotional labour
16:00 utopia panel discussion
17:00 dreamy open mic
18:00 ITE EEROLA
19:00 Lempi Elo
20:00 Elsi Sloan
21:00 dj emotional labour
Workshops
The Dream Map and Zine workshops, open throughout the evening, offer a place to breathe, tinker, unleash your creativity, and make your voice heard visually.
COLLECTIVE DREAM MAP WORKSHOP
In our individualistic society, dream maps are often presented as a tool for envisioning personal success and make desired consumer goods come true.The Utopia Evenings give dream maps a different meaning.
In the workshop, we will craft a large, collective dream map using collage techniques, outlining a utopian future for all of us.
Utopias serve as counter-images to the present, imagining how things could be different. In the workshop, everyone can add their own dream images to the map, continue where others left off, or weave together the gaps between dream images.
By the end of the evening, the map may look like a shared utopia.
ZINE WORKSHOP
In the Zine workshop, we will fold and create 8-page cute but dangerous zines.
The roots of zines, or self-published small publications, lie in pre-internet activism: in anti-racist movements, punk, feminist Riot Grrrl, and queer communities. Through zines, creators have given themselves a voice not given by mainstream media or society.
Handmade works are an intimate way to explore society’s taboos and norms. Their message spreads hand-to-hand, and the small booklets are so irresistibly charming that you want to open them immediately. Creating a zine requires no more than pen and paper.
But what is a zine, and can I make one?
A zine is an anarchistic playground: its beauty lies in having no rules, publisher, or editor. A zine can be a manifesto, comic, collage, poem, fan art, politics, memories—a mix of all these, or anything else. A zine is born through exploration. Come to the workshop, fold a small booklet, and see where your thoughts take you
Utopia panel discussion
Note. The panel will be held in Finnish only.
Where can we find solace in the ruins of a late capitalist society moving from crisis to crisis? Dreaming of utopias challenges us to imagine a better future and to assess the limitations of current structures.
Members of the Vita Nuova collective will discuss the significance of utopias, their inspiring power, and the challenges they present. The panel will practice the art of dreaming and contemplate the nature of utopias. Are they mere counter-images of the present or ideal societies yet to be realized? How can we consider alternatives in an economic system that convinces us there are none? Do utopias serve as sources of inspiration and discussions on justice, freedom, and well-being, or are they condemned as too idealistic and unattainable?
The discussion will be opened by Vita Nuova collective member and queer artist Artemis Myllynen, and the panel will be moderated by Vita Nuova’s editor-in-chief, comic artist Riina Tanskanen. The panelists include:
Samu Kuoppa, nonfiction author known for “The Great Illusion of Capitalism” and a doctoral researcher studying power relations and justice in energy policy
Alina Viranto, Vita Nuova’s official utopia expert, writer, and sociology student
Vilma Tyni, literature student focused on climate fiction and ecological justice
Katri Jurvakainen, activist and doctoral researcher studying cultivation as a sustaining factor of capitalism and as a possibility for overcoming it
Dreamy Open Mic
Come dream of a different future at the open mic! The open mic is a shared and participatory space for us dreamers of the Utopia Evenings. The mic is open to poems, performances, sketches, odes, fragments of notes, manifestos, sparkling utopias, and words of comfort.
Perhaps you’ll dare to step on stage and whisper your secret wishes? Or you can simply listen..
The open mic will be opened by two amazing poetry duos: Emilia Värelä & Sofia Sylvia, and Mielensäsanoittaja (Mind articulators)
Collaborating artists EMILIA VÄRELÄ & SOFIA SYLVIA draw inspiration from repetition, views through swimming goggles, aimlessness, shade differences of dark red, and dogs passing by.
MIELENSÄSANOITTAJA is an art collective, formed by Roosa and Veera Niskanen, breathing words emerging from the depths of the human mind, as well as those left unspoken.
“Articulating the mind is the conquering of the world of thought, a platform for imagination and beautiful encounters. With their art, the twins aim to whisper questions, marvel at everything incongruous, and bring creative souls together. These wordsmiths know no rules.”
Artists
DJ EMOTIONAL LABOUR sprinkles you with the most dreamy queer bops & soft top energy.
ITE EEROLA is a singer-songwriter from Rovaniemi, also known as a mystery dynamo, a doer, and a human being. For Eerola, making music is a way to explore themself, life, and the nuances of existence and this strange shared humanity, sometimes with a brutally personal touch. Just like life, Eerola’s music doesn’t fit into any particular genre or mood; instead, Eerola playfully creates whatever comes to be at the moment. With their immediacy and radiance, ITE EEROLA has charmed audiences, offering a unique experience where you can never quite know what to expect this time.
Lempi Elo‘s music exudes folk, jazz, avant-garde unpredictability, and progressive vibrancy. From morning coffee to coniferous forest landscapes, from sunrise to twilight, Elo lives and writes stories about a world where we delve into the mysteries of connection and loneliness. When the band, eager to let loose, performs their melodies, even familiar places feel strange.
In 2023, Lempi Elo released the debut album of their band collective, “Huojuvat puut” (“Swaying Trees”), with the songs described as a continuation of the songbooks colored by classic artists like Liekki and Scandinavian Music Group. Elo never runs out of songs, and the collective will release their second full-length album, showcasing a lighter side of the band, already in the fall.
“Although the songs speak especially with their small gestures, it is impossible not to share in the joy of a collective awakened to the breadth of their skills.” – Soundi 2023
Elsi Sloan is one of the most interesting young musicians in Finland. Also according to Soundi, which named them the newcomer of the year in 2023. In their songs, the artist sings about, among other things, queer love, the climate crisis, and the occasionally harsh beauty of the world. They released their debut album in 2023. The “Pakko muuttua” album is brimming with innovative soundscapes that blend elements of pop, rap, and art rock. Each of Elsi Sloan’s live gigs is always a unique musical adventure. Elsi Sloan will conquer the stage at Utopiailtamat together with bass artist Saara Mänttäri.