Hello all and happy January 2024!
Lately, I have not been sharing my professional life on social media. This has led me to ponder on which format I could share my professional news, and I ended up starting a blog. This is my first blog writing. I aim to write it once a month. I wish myself persistence, excitement, and motivation to continue with it. I tend to immerse myself in my work and forget about the outside world. So to write a blog every month will be a challenge for myself 🙂
News from January
The year started in Rääkkylä, my home village with deep minus degrees.
January started with an intense residency-like period with Dawda Jobarteh here in my living room in Helsinki Finland. Dawda is originally a Gambian kora player but has been living in Denmark most of his life. Even though we have been friends for years and both are musicians we have not much played together. Dawda was featuring in my album Cosmologies which was released in January 2021.
As a part of this specific project, we do music together and investigate the effects of different power hierarchies on our work and the music we do together. Which unconscious and conscious beliefs and powers define our musical thinking and working underneath? The work consists of playing together, of course, but also discussions. During the January’s period, we discussed a lot and researched the focus of the work. But we did also something else than just worked: winter swimming. Congratulations for both I would say! That period was cold in Finland; Day degrees we were almost -20 degrees every day.
I think that we got a good start! Now the work continues at a distance by sending music, tracks, emails, messages, and calling. The next residency period will be later in the Spring.
Special thanks go to the Alfred Kordelin Foundation and Arts Promotion Centre Finland for making possible this project!
The conceptual framework of the study is based on African feminism which is largely based on intersectional and decolonial approaches. In recent years, I have been studying those subjects. Last Autumn I started also taking some courses about Indigenous studies. In a few weeks, I’m taking part in the course called Methodologies and Research Ethics in Indigenous Studies. I’m looking forward to the course, and hoping to get some methods and approaches that could be applied to the project with Dawda.
The start of the project was also exciting because I hadn’t played much at all since last May. My concert kantele was a tightly functioning clothes rack next to my bed. Since last May I had been focusing on writing my master’s thesis and working on the World Wide Women project that consisted more of administration and management than artistic work.
In addition to this project, my January includes working life studies at the University of Arts in Helsinki aiming to get a job as an art expert and administrator in the future.
Snow, cold, music, and studies are the ingredients of my January 🙂
What you would like to hear in the next blog?
