Jani Petteri Virta: The Possibilities of Lyrical and Corporeal Urban Art in the Lecture Space 21.–26.9.2021

”And there it came again: the unauthorized, the autonomous, the challenging of the assumed.” 

 What are the possibilities of lyrical and corporeal urban art in the lecture space? Yes, what are they? What is art activity in urban space? How does urban art relate to the city? Is the lecture space open? Is lyricism an ’ethereal fluffiness’, as the lecturer puts it? What are bodies? 

 Jani Virta, Master of Philosophy, has sought an answer to the question implied in the title, but would it be possible to find an answer only through experimentation, only in the form of performance art? 

The Possibilities of Lyrical and Corporeal Urban Art in the Lecture Space is a follow-up to a lecture-performance of the same name at the University of Turku in 2020 or 2021 – a lecture-performance which gravitated towards science but was not strictly scientific in the sense of the word, but which hasn’t been able to organise due to the pandemic. 

The event in Titanik will consist of a video that’s shown daily and three performances: 

Tue 21 Sep at 5:30 pm Lyricism and possibilities 

Thu 23 Sep at 5:30 pm Corporeality and the lecture room 

Fri 24 Sep at 6 pm Corporeality and urban art

 Jani Petteri Virta (b.1977) is an Eastern Finnish visual artist based in Turku, Finland, with over sixty performance art pieces and sixteen solo exhibitions to his credit. In his art making, he is interested in commenting on the state of the world, big emotions and the resulting incomprehensibility. 

Jani Petteri Virta’s work on this event has been supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland. However, the City of Turku, the Finnish Cultural Foundation’s Varsinais-Suomi Regional Fund and the Turku Art Society did not provide support, despite requests.