Teemu TakataloCurator, Holobiont Project
Teemu Takatalo is visual artist, film maker, curator and freelance writer, currently working in Greece and Finland. Takatalo is the founder of an artistic city research unit, Centre of Urban Expeditions. He has been part of Floating Residence Project – building D.I.Y. river rafts from recycled materials in Lithuania (2005) and in Germany (2006). During years 2007 and 2008 Takatalo crossed Europe on foot, from Brussels to Istanbul, with his colleague Raila Knuuttila. The experience inspired various art exhibitions, a book (written by Raila Knuuttila) and a radio documentary. In 2010 Takatalo and bunch of other artists and craftsmen buildt a water vessel, the Sailing Boat Silakka, out of recycled material. The boat was launched on the Baltic sea the same summer and sent on voyage from the West-coast of Finland towards Estonia in order to research the complexity of our self-destructive contemporary society and way of living. Since 2011 Takatalo has been working with problems related to consumerism and so-called green capitalism. The result has been compiled in a series of art-works under the title Enlighten Consumer. Takatalos installations, videos and photographs – often concerning society, ecology and power relations – have been exhibited in several solo and joint-exhibitions, video festivals and video-art screenings in Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Belgium, Greece, Italy, England, Denmark and Germany. Since 2004 Takatalo has been working as a curator and art producer in the Center of Contemporary Art in Pispala, Finland, curating a wide range of art events from performance art festivals to art related seminars. In addition to that Takatalo has been organising art events, exhibitions and workshops in Italy, Lithuania and Greece. In 2009 Takatalo worked as a community radio producer in Joensuu, Finland, and has been participating in different documentary film productions in Finland, Portugal and Greece. His first feature length video essay, The Gospel of Enlightened Consumer, premiered in the Electric Lantern International Film Festival in Kent, England, 2013. Takatalo's polemic writings about politics and arts have been published in many magazines, books and publications in Finland and internationally. In 2014 Takatalo and his work group edited and published an art book about the Sailing Boat Silakka Project. |