One idea is to explore the visual representation and perception of Espoon keskus. The basic idea is to explore how Espoon keskus is represented in marketing and how it is perceived by local inhabitants and other users.
I was looking for professional photographs of the area but did not find quite much. If someone can help me with that I'd be glad. I had a look around at the following websites:
www.espoo.fi
www.visitespoo.fi
www.espoonkeskus.fi
www.entresse.fi
www.espoontori.fi
It seems that they all more or less try to avoid using pics of Espoon keskus for any marketing purpose (that tells something as well). Instead maps are used a lot. My initial idea for this project was to show marketing pictures to people and ask them to draw their picture of Espoon keskus at the actual place the photograph was taken. I am thinking about transparent paper, so the photograph can actually be used as a basis. But still there would be the decision of each individual painter/drawer what is important for him/her to represent.
Another way one could go (e.g. in case there are not enough marketing pics available) are sketches of individual perception of the site. I am also thinking about the mental maps concept, which is quite fascinating for me.
The second idea is completely different. Walking around on Thursday I noticed a huge set of different CCTV equipment that is used in Espoon keskus. Would it be worth mapping those and make people physically aware of where they are actually monitored? Maybe drawing the areas that can be seen on the ground? The problem is that it is easy to go into the opposite direction and show the owners where they are not yet filming (=criminalizing) people. So I started thinking to work in the spaces that are not yet monitored. But I still would want people to understand why I'd work in those spaces.
One could also develop an interactive installation out of this: a audio signal when people enter those spaces? or a spotlight on the area when a person is going through it?
The following picture is a little collection of different CCTVs I found in Espoon keskus today (I did not take any camera more then ones. All pics are taken within 2 hours and I am sure there are a lot more of them).
Another less developed idea is just to spread around small (and I mean small) pieces of street art in the city space. This might be my personal opinion, but I've noticed that it seems a "normal" street art culture is not developed in Finland. This might be due to the fact that street art is removed from public spaces very fast. So could I use this opportunity to implement really small pieces of street art in Espoo? Maybe even make people aware that creativity is possible in urban space and motivate them? I took a look what is already around at the site today. What I found was mostly tagging. It is quite obvious that you need to create really permanent stuff if you want it to be seen for more then a few hours ( I tried simple labels today > let's see what happens to them ). Just to give an example: there is one tag near the library "Moi! Hei!" > I immediately wanted to write the same in more languages and am asking myself if one could start a communication with other taggers by adding to the tags? One could also try labeling around (effective labels might have more influence in a few hours then permanent tags?).
This is what I am up to right now. Am happy about comments, inspiration,…
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