LITTLE BOX OF BLOCKS
Sep 3rd to Sep 20th 2011
The components in the Little Box of Blocks are designed and produced to work as an aid, primarily in art-related exhibitions and workshops, but also in private playing events. The concept’s field has not been limited, but if need be, it can be placed somewhere between art and play; a place, where classifications do not matter.
The Little Box of Blocks contains aids to playing; interpretations drawn from using them; recorded playing events, and their multidisciplinary applications. The Little Box of Blocks does not have a set age or target group; instead it can be modified to meet different needs.
The concept’s aim is to be free of all cultural-specificity, and it can be suited to any cultural frame. KO-KOO-MO workshop, which is a part of the concept, has been held, for instance, for disabled children in Mozambique. In Poriginal gallery the Little Box of Blocks has been knocked over: the space has what the box’s dimensions can contain: a little pile of blocks.
From the little pile of blocks you can distinguish a human-shaped reconstruction kit; a human being, or a mechanism describing the actions of a human being. The Human- Shaped Reconstruction Kit is a tool: like the concept it represents, it is a tool for the result desired, the constructional and functional realities its only conditions. The construction kit is a technical solution, following the meaning the user has chosen for it.
The Human-Shaped Reconstruction Kit can guide, but not give an absolute guidance on its usability; it can act as a receiving, adapting tool, ready to be placed in different thematic contexts.
The shape and content of the Human-Shaped Reconstruction Kit come from the event realized with its help. The term “reconstruction kit” refers to the varyingly stable, stumbling, and tripping modular construction’s humane need and ability to rise again and again; either as the reconstruction of its predecessor, or as an entirely new structural solution. The Little Box of Blocks’ role is to act as the producer of the material, the facilitator of an event, and as the recorder and displayer of any material created from these.
The aim is to join the realized with the realizer, not with the concept or its designer; to ensure the concept becomes an actor-derived situation with an open-ended lifespan, as disconnected from its designer as possible; one that can be realized anywhere, any time, without an external activation or guidance. The concept, defined by this aim, will have its website in September: www.palikkakasa.fi The site includes the concept’s introduction, a workshop area, and a gallery designed to display the material created in the workshop.
The material on display at Poriginal Gallery was funded by Design Committee of Finland, Children’s culture Committee of Finland, Foreign Ministry, Satakunta Art Committee, Satakunta Regional Council, and Alfred Kordelin foundation. The interactive exhibition in Poriginal Gallery and online was funded by Finnish Cultural Foundation’s Satakunta Foundation.