03.05.2024

Living Utopia – Other Spaces 20 years

The pioneering Finnish performing arts collective Other Spaces collective is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Other spaces started operating within Nälkäteatteri in 2004. Over the years, Other Spaces has developed into one of the most significant and international performing arts groups in Finland, with its own unique aesthetics and artistic practice.

Other Spaces' anniversary programme includes an exhibition and performance event at the Theatre Museum in autumn 2024.

Living Utopia exhibition

11.9.–20.10.2024 at the Theatre Museum Studio

In honor of the anniversary, an exhibition presenting the 20-year activities of the Other Spaces collective will be shown at the Theater Museum. In the exhibition, visitors can take a peek into the history of the Other Spaces collective and get to know the collective's artistic practice in detail.

Utopian Organism performance event

Saturday 14.9. and Sunday 15.9. at the Theatre Museum Maneesi

The performance event Utopian Organism is an continuous series of exercises in which ten artists of the Other Spaces group perform a total of 40 exercises developed by the group over a period of 20 years. The series of exercises creates a utopian space and a collective entity, where the starting point of being is an experiential connection with the non-human world. The event manifests an aspiration towards an alternative planetary future, which, however, is experientially attainable already today.

Other 20th anniversary events by Other Spaces can be found from the websites:
https://toisissatiloissa.net/en/elava-utopia/

Photo: Mika Elo.

**

Over the years, Other Spaces has developed more than 200 physical and collective exercises. A common theme of the exercises is transformation and familiarization with forms of being and experiencing that are foreign to humans. The group has presented and taught these exercises at various events and workshops. Based on the exercises, the group prepares thematic performances, such as Reindeer Safari, Humanoid Hypothesis, Great Barrier Reef and Enlightenment Machine, which have been presented at numerous festivals and production houses both in Finland and abroad.

Living Utopia is a series of events in which the Other Spaces presents and teaches the public its exercises more comprehensively than ever before. The anniversary year is realized in cooperation with the Theatre Museum, the Performing Arts Center and the Helsinki Student Theatre, and the events of the year are supported by the The Finnish Cultural Foundation, the City of Helsinki and the Arts Promotion Center.