URB 11

With a wide selection of approaches to contemporary urban art, the URB festival returns to Kiasma and to the streets of Helsinki.

  • 29.7.–7.8.2011
Tickets: paid
URB11 festival logo.

Arteles Citywalks

Sat 30.7.14.00 and 15.00, Urban space
Free entry

The international guests of the Arteles artist residency will lead two expeditions to the city. Participants will be able to perceive their surroundings in new and perhaps surprising ways. The tours, aiming to take back urban spaces, will start in front ofKiasma’s front doors, and will be conducted in English.

Dublin2

Fri 5.8.–Sun 7.8., Lasipalatsi square

Dublin2 is a refugee camp in the middle of Helsinki. It’s a live action role-playing game (or larp for short) that invites people to experience the harsh realities refugees face, from human trafficking to the grey market and the lack of ID papers. The characters are based on real stories. The game centers on depicting the asylum procedure, and is based on the actions of its players: the situations and choices encountered within the game.

Through Dublin2, the players as well as anyone watching the game progress can experience the asylum seekers’ struggle for survival; something that touches on the lives of each citizen of the European Union, yet stays largely invisible to most of them. The game is played in Kamppi, and centers on a refugee camp in Lasipalatsi square, where the players will spend most of their time.

I Love Hip Hop in Morocco

Jennifer Needleman (US) & Joshua Asen (US)
Sat 30.7.15.00 Kiasma Theatre
Tickets 8 / 6 €

I Love Hip Hop in Morocco documents the hip hop scene in Morocco. The movie follows moroccan musicians and artists in their struggles to organize the first hip hop festival in Morocco.

Unlike in the United States where hip hop was born, in Morocco artists have to fight against censorship, restrictions on free speech, and religious small-mindedness. The freedom of expression so inherent in hip hop is hard-pressed in a country where the people are poor and the ruling theocracy calls popular music a sin. Through music, the movie opens up the views of the local youth on politics, the world and Islam. The movie shows how hip hop has brought life and spirit to the youth -something their rich king and his government has never been able to provide.

Hip Hop Revolution

Weeam Williams (ZA)
Fri 29.7. Kiasma Theatre
Tickets 8 / 6 €

Hip Hop Revolution goes through the history of South-African hip hop. DJ’s, B-boys, MC’s and graffiti artists share their stories about how hip hop catalyzed change and helped people to break free from the inequities taking place in Africa at the time. The movie delves into racism, apartheid and social injustices and shows how hip hop changed the lives of an entire generation of people.

Hi! My Name Is…

Cecilia Moisio
Thu 4.8., Fri 5.8.19.00 Kiasma Theatre
Tickets 15 / 10 €

New technology creates a pressure to publish your private life. People are forced to look for social contacts via the strangest means. In Hi! My Name Is… dancer-choreographer Cecilia Moisio, dancer Erin Harty (IE) and rap group Urbaanilegenda ask: How far are you willing to go to find peace and desensitize feelings of loneliness?

The choreographer Cecilia Moisio is a dancer and dance instructor living in Holland. She has garnered respect by performing in works by various international choreographers. From 2009 onwards she has worked with the production company Dansmakers Amsterdam.

Sometimes I think, I can see you

Mariano Pensotti (AR)
Wed 3.8. –Fri 5.8. Railway station
Free entry

Mariano Pensotti‘s internationally exhibited performance Sometimes I think, I can see you arrives at the Helsinki railway station. In the station hall, writers with laptops observe their surroundings and shape what they see into stories mixing truth and fiction. The writings are projected on the walls in real-time, so bypassers can see how the stories develop. By simply passing through the station hall commuters will become elements in the story, and with their own actions, they can take part in the act of spontaneous and shared creation.

Mariano Pensotti was born in 1973 in Buenos Aires. He works primarily with moving image and theatre. He has won multiple awards and his performances have been showcased around the world.

Urban art – Art workshop for young people

Tu 2. –Thu 4.8.11.00 –16.00 Villa Arttu
Free entry

In the workshop Timo Vaittinen (famous, for example, from URB 08’s Ex Vandals exhibition) will guide young people in the making of urban visual art. Artworks will be made with painting and by constructing sculptures from wood. Finished works will be presented in an exhibition in Villa Arttu 1.-25.9.