Screening: Saturday 23 October at 17.00 – 19.00, welcome!
*“Türkü, literally “of the Turk”, is a name given to Turkish folk songs as opposed to şarkı (literally: “of the East”). In contemporary language, the meanings of the words türkü and şarkı have shifted: türkü refers to folk songs of all ethnicities within Turkey including the Kurds, Arabs, Circassians etc. whereas şarkı refers to all other songs, including foreign music.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Türkü
As opposed to the Wikipedia author(s), in ozz’s artwork ‘I believe – The Türkü of Turku’, created in October 2010 in Turku, the word Türkü is associated with Turku merely for the reason of visual and audial analogy, hence, an unavoidable word play. His work attempts to lose the ethno-geographical subtext but maintain the meaning of the word in terms of becoming the türkü, the music, the song, das lied, laulu of Turku.
The lyrics of ‘I believe – The Türkü of Turku’ are gathered from renowned rhetoricians, which makes the project a participatory one even though the participants are not aware of their participation. When compared to any other rhetorician, the participants of the project are far more distinguished in using language as a tool to manipulate the actions, behaviours and opinions of the masses. The performers of ‘I believe – The Türkü of Turku’, ozz, the current guest artist of the Sumu A.I.R program, Tane Kannisto and Julius Heikkilä, two splendid jazz musicians, are manipulating the words of the manipulators and telling it again and again and back to us the audience, the citizens of Turku, how beautiful and full of culture this city is.
With his project ozz brings forth the core points, the similarities and differences, the poetic qualities of the speeches those coined on a common subject matter, the phenomenon of European Capital of Culture. Each performance is different from one another in its musical quality, but in the whole of it we sometimes face straightforward mockery, sometimes the darkest possible humour, but always with a fantastic musical improvisation and a genuine way of acting upon the elements of reality.
What you should get prepaid for is firstly a performance, which takes place on October the 22nd Friday at seven different locations in the cityscape of Turku. If you happen to be in the city and if you are passing by the following locations, check out your surroundings to witness the performance in situ: the Cross of Koroinen, Forum Marinum, Turku Art Museum, Turku Castle. The other three locations are not of public knowledge, but who knows, perhaps you will come across them, perhaps you will hear them from afar. In any case we urge you to neither call the asylum, nor the police, nor any music company, but we simply recommend you to enjoy the performance. Secondly, the documentation of the performance, which will meet the public the day after the performance in the Titanik Gallery. The exhibition will open its doors to visitors at 5 pm. and the screening will run until 7 pm. If you miss the exhibition, you can watch the video in the homepage of the artist in the coming weeks.
Finally, unfortunately a bit later than sooner, the monumentalisation of the work, for which a petition will be awaiting your lovely signature at the opening of the exhibition. The aim is to reach a certain number of signatures and erect ‘I believe – The Türkü of Turku’ as a public monument for a year during the whole of 2011, where ozz will dedicate his work to the citizens of Turku, the European Capital of Culture, 2011.
But now we sing.
Altogether.
Tuuuurrkuuuuuuu, nmmmmm, nmm.
Tuurrkuuuu, nmmm, nmm…
