Jenna Sutela,
Writer/Curator/OK Do/etc.

Founded by myself and Anni Puolakka in 2009, OK Do is a critical art/design practice for cultural introspection and intervention. Operating between Helsinki and Paris, and in collaboration with organisations and individuals of different stripes, we come together in publications, installations and presentations.

Challenging the permanent with the temporary, the big with the small, the social with the cultural and the global with the local, OK Do's activities resemble those of an alternative cultural institute.

Our past projects have dealt with, for example, the societal parameters of contemporary design, the aesthetics of science, and literary placemaking, with partners including the Museum of Finnish Architecture and the Aalto University.

Photo: Hertta Kiiski

Solution 239-246, Finland: The Welfare Game (Sternberg Press 2011) by architect Martti Kalliala, co-written with architect Tuomas Toivonen and me, addresses the Nordic country’s numerous predicaments. We propose eight and a half solutions to our native country’s quandaries, ranging from the practical (rescuing ailing public space through climatization and the introduction of the Winter Garden City), to the absurd (dividing the country into two interlocking sub-nations: City and Wilderness) and the earnest, if far-reaching (the repurposing of the country to host the world’s nuclear waste).

The book elucidates the northern country’s modern history as a nation under construction, proposing that its identity remain a malleable myth, in which designing a more tenable future is the conduit for crucial adaptation.

Design: Z.A.K. See also: 'Solution 246: Mythcraft' exhibition at the 032c Workshop in Berlin, 2012.

My article Non-linear reading for Frieze magazine's May 2012 issue discusses Internet modes of reading through the review of two publications: Mieke Gerritzen and Geert Lovink's 'I Read Where I Am: Exploring New Information Cultures' (Valiz, 2011) and Boris Groys' essay 'Google: Words Beyond Grammar' (Hatje Cantz, 2012), as written for dOCUMENTA (13)'s '100 Notes – 100 Thoughts' series.

The piece considers new forms of "image-text" at a time when technology develops form and content simultaneously and considers them to be a whole; or reading as seeing and writing as thinking online, where we analyse and organise information by taking notes, then publishing them in a prologue state. Going through indexes and search engines, it looks at the contemporary ways in which we address questions to the world, or address the questions that the world asks us.

I wrote about Vuokko Eskolin-Nurmesniemi, my favourite Finnish designer and Issey Miyake's fashion mom, for Apartamento magazine #7, 2011.

"If you don't ask yourself, you'll never get the answer."

Never boring and never bored, Vuokko's always had her own questions. She has, for example, used batteries in clothes to keep them warm, as long as 50 years ago, and blocked holes in printing machines with chewing gum in order to enable larger patterns in her fabrics for the early Marimekko collections. 'Design Mom' piece discusses the establishment of this "Vuokko way of thinking", and how nothing has ever stopped her since.

Portrait: Kaarle Hurtig. See also: 'Symbolic Space' in Apartamento #8, 2011; 'The Mushroom Theory' in #6, 2010; and 'Home for Abstract Content' in #5, 2010.

Having discussed the societal role of art and design with a group of Finnish and British practitioners at OK Do's 'OK Talk' events in autumn 2010, we published the 'OK Talk Helsinki/London' book (OK Do 2011) to document and widen the discourse.

In further analysing the field, and listening to Ryuichi Sakamoto's 'Participation Mystique' for inspiration, I wrote about the authority of abstract, beautiful things which evoke mystical modes of participation. My essay is a critique of recent dot-pointable design processes overshadowing or trivialising some of the equivocal aspects that constitute the very artistry of the discipline.

The book includes contributions by Åbäke, Bryan Boyer, Martti Kalliala, Zak Kyes, Markus Miessen, Karen Mirza, Teemu Suviala and Finn Williams.

Design: Åh. Photo: Paavo Lehtonen.

"Finnish musicians like to repeat things. It goes on and on... Sometimes for too long."

For the April 2011 issue of The Wire magazine, I got out of control about music with Shinji Kanki, a Japanese-Finnish composer and my former sound art teacher, as well as other local practitioners, with a mission to unravel Finland's orderly art music scene. The 'Global Ear Helsinki' piece discusses methods such as unorthodox musical education; encouraging students not to listen too much while they're playing, interpreting roof tiles as a score, and trying to only produce sound when no one else is. However, it also endorses the beauty of tedium:

"The best thing about the new music scene is that you can't always be sure when the concert started, or if it already started or not."

Photo: The Art of War by Shinji Kanki

Following a science fiction mindset, OK Do's 'Science Poems' project explored the poetry and multi-sensorial aesthetics of natural science. Having resulted in an artist's book, it built around a group exhibition at 0fr galerie, Paris in June 2010. Ranging from fashion exploring electromagnetic space to a musical composition derived from DNA base pairs, each commissioned artwork attempted to see and understand, or imagine and question everyday scientific phenomena.

More than a catalogue, the self-published title includes discussions with influential science poets as well as unique writings and images, such as my physics-inspired event scores. It has been presented in performances at do you read me?!, Berlin, X Marks the Bökship, London and Napa, Helsinki, with contributors including Megatron Braineater, K.I. Kinnunen, Laura Laine, Daniel Palillo and Nene Tsuboi.

Design: Åh. Photo: Paavo Lehtonen.

Following the editing of graphic design agency Kokoro & Moi's biography for Les Éditions Pyramyd, I curated a retrospective exhibition for them at NOW IDeA gallery in Aoyama, Tokyo in October 2009. The 'Air Current/Past' exhibition presented Kokoro & Moi’s work from a new perspective, depicting a journey instead of the destination and exploring the elements of variation, collaboration and play in the agency’s projects over the past eight years.

The project featured an aerogami workshop by Takuo Toda, the holder of the world record for the longest paper plane flight. Folding and flying A4 prints presenting a retrospective take on Kokoro & Moi’s design, Mr. Toda and the workshop participants jointly produced an exhibition of paper planes in the air.

Photo: Teemu Suviala. See also: 'Surprise!' in Print #6, 2011, guest art directed by Kokoro & Moi.

thisissand.com is a website for play. It changes the pixels on the screen into digital sand that can be used as building material for cosmic landscapes, Clemens-style sand paintings, and so on. I made it with Johanna Lundberg and Timo Koro in 2008.

The digital sandbox on thisissand.com takes after the physical one. Just like the actual sand gets its colour from its origins, the sand used on thisissand.com covers the RGB palette natural to digital environments. Also the sounds of falling sand resemble a real life phenomenon where the wind triggers a low-pitch sound in natural sand. Instead of nature's frequencies the digital sand generates white noise, which is considered analogous to white light, containing all frequencies like the RGB grains do.

Image: 'Tutanchamun' sand drawing by Kolibri

I co-founded Suunnitelma B association for contemporary culture and we set up B Gallery, Turku in 2005. The idea of the project was to create a platform for emerging cultural activity in a city of many art schools, yet little to no space for experimentation beyond them.

Maintained by an evolving group of members, B Gallery provides a showcase for art as well as facilities for events such as concerts, film screenings or workshops. It has, for example, served as a venue for a mini music festival and mundane art fair. The space also hosts a small bookshop.

Visit B Gallery at Aninkaistenkatu 5, 20100 Turku, Finland.

Photo: Skins by Katja Novitskova for 'SO REAL' exhibition, 2011