SAFE{R}: Evolving the Conditions for Collaboration
in 'Six years in the Third Space', Third Space, Helsinki (published online)
"The word collaborate comes from Latin roots. Words beginning with the prefix ‘col-’ meaning together, implying doing something together. The root word ‘laborare’, also from Latin, gives us many of the English words used to talk about careers and work. In fact, the word labor comes from this root word. Putting the two Latin parts of this word together, the word literally means ‘to work together’.
Today, Collaboration is at the core of any artistic, curatorial, choreographic, literary, or activist work, fundamentally transforming the ways in which we think of each of these fields of work both individually as well as collectively. Not even museum thinking, or thinking about museums as a form of critical artistic praxis can happen in isolation, and perhaps it is important to clarify that I write this not as an individual, but as a representative of a collective, a cultural center, a para-institution called ‘Museum of Impossible Forms’ (M{if}). Formed in 2017 and located in Kontula Helsinki, M{if} was borne out of a need for art and cultural spaces for artists and communities located in the margins. Now in its fourth year of working, it has metamorphosed into an indispensable resource within the multiple artistic, curatorial, activist, and pedagogical discourses in Helsinki, Finland, and the Nordic region; and continues to make its presence felt as a decolonial, antiracist and queer-feminist project. As a heterogeneous space of unlearning, it has fostered experimental migrant forms of expression, norm-critical consciousness, and critical thinking through extensive programming towards building multiple vibrant communities within the tessellated folds of its space.
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In 2020 Third Space celebrates its 6th anniversary with an interdisciplinary program revolving around the complex theme of COLLABORATION. Access the online publication and the full text here.
Read more about Third Space here.