OK Do is a peripatetic art/design collective of Anni Puolakka (+33 6 30 41 29 5) and Jenna Sutela (+358 40 574 3434). We exercise cultural introspection and intervention through publications, installations and performative projects.
Museum of the Near Future (MNF) is an apparatus for looking sideways at and intervening in urban situations and institutions. It presents itself as social installations—such as literary circles or other temporary communities—which are set up on museum premises. Producing space for imagination and discourse, these parasitic installations attempt to destabilise perceptions of what is possible, and desirable, between the now and the next in a given area.
The first iteration of Museum of the Near Future took place at the Museum of Finnish Architecture’s dormant villa in Helsinki during autumn 2011 and in collaboration with Berlin-based Motto Distribution. MNF I explored micro-political and experimental modes of participation in Helsinki, a city undergoing grand urban transformations, such as its rapid expansion to centrally located former harbour areas or the recent identity-defining missions. Composed of a thematic book society/shop in an underused institutional facility, and involving activities such as readings, a narrated field trip and publishing around it, the installation attempted to marry personal and public spaces, while proposing literature as a tool for making (or affecting) places.
A publication to follow tells the story of MNF I and extends it. The Risograph printed limited edition will be launched at Berlin’s Markthalle on January 2012 (see Twitter/Facebook for more details).
Aalto University invited us to set up a course at the School of Art and Design in autumn 2011 for discussing and experimenting with critical and philosophical modes of design practice. Having started Critical Studio by getting immersed (or lost) in the discourse about the contemporary definition and role of a designer, its final aim is to come to grips with the turbulent profession through encouraging an active role in and a personal stance to its development among the students. This has been and will be done by means of 1) one-to-one dialogues with pioneering professionals on a field trip to Amsterdam, 2) editing and producing a publication under the working title "Critically Lost/Found" and 3) setting up a public debate in 2012.
OK Talk is a platform we created for bringing people together to discuss the societal role of the creative field. Coming to life in events and publications, it aims to challenge current practices and their objectives, while bringing forth ideas for designers and artists to put to use.
Following the first OK Talk events in 2010, OK Talk Helsinki/London book documents the discussions between a group of twenty Finland- and UK-based creative practitioners, which dealt with new modes of spatial practice, strategies of participation and the crossing of boundaries between design, art and other fields. In addition to presenting the best parts of the talks, the publication widens the discourse, offering new perspectives to the topics at hand through essays, interviews and visual material. It is edited by us and designed by Åh, including contributions by Åbäke, Bryan Boyer, Martti Kalliala, Zak Kyes, Markus Miessen, Karen Mirza, Teemu Suviala and Finn Williams.
The book (available through Motto and Napa) was first launched in Berlin as part of OK Talk WDC: Making Places in summer 2011. We also celebrated it in Helsinki at the Museum of Finnish Architecture and in London together with Company at the Reddress event in York Hall.