Some info about my project

So, I am photographer and I want to make an exhibition of Espookescus children's pictures at the mall.

The project consists of four phases.

1. Informing visitors of the event. And a set of project participants.

I need to attract people. It could be a poster or something like that at the entrance to the center, in youth centre and trapesa. I need to make simple monochromatic design of posters or flyers. So everyone can print it. I need text for flayers and terms of participation (age, cloth, hairstyle and ect)

2. Signature of permits for filming and photography. I already have blank. And make request for equipment. This is some referents  of the product

3. Postproduction. I don't think that there will be some troubles.

4. Exhibition. I still have no exact format for exhibition. But I still have some ideas

 

Espoon Keskus

I am not very proud to admit that I had quite a few preconceptions of Espoon Keskus, or rather about Espoo in general, before visiting Espoon Keskus. They had mainly to do with:

• Weird, ugly, brutalist architecture
• Westend & Swedish-speaking Finns vs. poor suburbs with a big population of immigrants
• No identity or an image; tasteless, odourless, colourless, spiceless, dull and boring, middle-class, middle-aged, uninspiring
• NIMBY: not in my back yard
• The guest harbour case
• The café case
• Reserved, prejudiced, selfish, ignorant, corrupted, apprehensive: people being worried that something or somebody will come and take away what they own or that something is threatening their lifestyle and what they represent.

From our first visit to Espoon Keskus we learned that from their perspective Espoo is the little brother of Helsinki that has not been developed as quickly because of Helsinki. The centre of Espoon Keskus is situated between the old church and the Entresse shopping centre and divided by the railway. The Centre was built as a result of a competition in 1972 that was won by a group of Polish architects. The result is big bulgy blocks,a lot of parking spaces, lifted up walkways – a centre built for cars not for people not for interaction or a community. The brutalist architecture to me seems super clumsy, masculine, pompous and the whole feel of Espoon Keskus is quite unwelcoming.


In our visit to the city hall we heard that Espoo is one of the fastest growing cities in Finland, it is – and has been – very dependent on the railway development and that the demographics consist mainly of young families where around 40% of the people living in Espoon Keskus are between the ages 35-64. The future vision or a brand for Espoon keskus is a "cultural landscape & young urban milieu that promotes healthy & sustainable lifestyle that’s based on public transport. It’s a crosspoint & a living room for people living in Espoo that is run by an open & agile government”. The areas the city development will focus on in the near future are:

• new practices for a versatile city centre
• the station area
• Building apartments near services and public transport
• a quality pedestrian and cycling environment
• More green, trees etc.

I couldn’t agree more on the areas they need to be developing but they sure have their work cut out for them if they are to realise their humble future vision. What I personally would have liked to hear, though, was a more human centred approach on how it will actually be done, something that would have involved the citizens of Espoon Keskus in the decision making and development of the area. Now the city representative only mentioned that “We should ask the residents, but the people are always the same and have the same ideas” referring to a project where people got to choose equipment for the playgrounds. From this statement it is quite obvious that they still have a lot to learn about citizen participation.

First impressions

To me the word that would best describe Espoon keskus is sekasikiö, which in english translates into a mongrel. It is a crazy combination of old and new/modern, urban-agrarian, rich-poor. It’s characterised by concrete, brutalism, shopping centres, a sense of a suburb not a city, weird architecture that seems to have created a vicious circle when building new, a centre that was designed for cars, not for people/ interaction/ community/ a natural infrastructure or a flow of people. There is no sense of community nor nothing that would support a sense of community, nothing that would make people naturally get to know each other, no triggers, nothing that would facilitate interaction.

Overall as a whole Espoo to me seems very scattered, a set of several small city centres without much connection that seem to rather be competing against each other than working together for the greater good of Espoo. There seems to be no character, no identity or an image – There are a lot of blemishes but no edge. The overall feel is dismal, gloomy and cheerless, there’s no sense of identity, nothing people would be proud of nor something that would be characteristic of residents of Espoon Keskus.

What I started wondering was how could this weird mongrel be turned into a curiosity, how could the crazy mismatch become an interesting character and even an asset. What I think Espoon Keskus would need is a community. It is small, it’s not a city so maybe it should stop pretending to be one and become more like a village by bringing more life to the streets, taking better care of the pedestrians, building something else besides shopping centres – even by becoming an anti shopping centres community. By turning their focus on the pedestrians and the liveliness on the streets they would improve the feeling of livability and safety in Espoon Keskus. Espoon Keskus also has unutilised richness that comes from the variety of people, ethnicities, cultures, backgrounds, stories etc. that they should cherish and see as an asset that could help in creating something completely unique out of Espoon Keskus.

After getting to know more about Espoon Keskus I maybe didn’t get rid of all my preconceptions but my image of it has evolved, at least a bit. Now I see that it's like any other place in Finland, very much as I had thought but much more human once seen and experienced. People there are living their lives as people anywhere else, not thinking too much about the surroundings but rather adjusting to what ever they need to adjust to, exactly as we human beings do. The old church is very beautiful, as is the river and the scenery when ever it’s not interrupted by crazy layers of architecture and ideas from the past decades.

Media Intervention: First Impressions of Espoon Keskus

Despite living in Finland for most of my adult life, I have to admit that I've never come tp visit the Espoon Keskus area before. Our first visit was rather brief, and it is quite challenging to give a meaningful or in depth analysis based on the experience. To be more precise, I find it fairly difficult to give an analysis or an impression of any depth, and from this observation I conclude that the area was fairly complex to comprehend.

I felt the place to be somewhat distant and incomplete, but that being said, it might very well have a time of progress and development ahead of itself. The visit to the city hall gave us some insight of the future plans for the area and if they come to be implemented, the general comfortability and structure of the place are sure to progress. 

If I would put my first impression to one word, it would probably be "incomplete". The area seemed on some degree to be lacking structure, which might also be the reason it was so hard to "map" out. 

While walking trough the area we saw the city hall, an old church and apartment buildings. The scenery didn't vary much from a general landscape of a walk trough of any Finnish suburbia. From the city hall we passed the train station and walked to Entresse shopping centre. The only oddity I came across, was the abundance of empty store spaces in the shopping centre as well as a lack of passers by. It will be interesting to see how the impression changes, as we get to experience the area with more depth and time.

Finnish tradition for who living in Finland- Palmusunnuntai

16.3, I visited to Trapesaa, the international meeting point founded by Filoksenia association. When I came inside and talked wih Raisa, a board member of that association, I knew an art class held in that afternoon. So that I happened to join there.

Next weekend is Easter so that end of this week is Palmusunnuntai (English: palm sunday) in Finland. In this tradition children in a witch costume visit and bring sticks to each house, the kids spell some "magical" things and get candies in return they give those sticks to the house. It was my first time to heard that Finnish or most northern countries have that kind of tradition.

That art for children class held by volunteers two women, they help to children to make the sticks made of pussy willows with colourful decoration for example papers or ribbon, tape, whatever. There were 7 girls about 7 years old making sticks for Palmusunnuntai. It was little bit surprising for me that children who have different cultural background concentrate to making stuff for Finnish tradition, and they were enjoying.

This experience gives me an idea that small children might go beyond cultural difference, and their behavior fills the atmosphere with tolerance.
It seems that area, Espoo Keskus, has a problem of lack of community however it's not completely true. There are surely some communities but each of them are isolated and not communicate with others. To promote communication between each of them how should we design the way?  I think that Art for children class gives me a hint.

My First impression of Espoo Keskus

 "My First impression of Espoo Keskus" Hiromu Yoshimine

Hello, I'm Hiro, a Japanse student and studying at New Media Design,  Aalto university as an exchange student.

This project Media Intervention gives me my first opportunity to visit and know Espoo Keskus area.
I think this area located between Rural area and Urban. As we went to a walk and looked around,  the centre is everything is under construction and still growing. The process based on master plan of the city and it's changing the face quietly but certainly.

I went to take a look around then I saw a lot of ordinary but particular things: a big road goes through a forest, and a train toward capital Helsinki comes over to the station once in 15 minutes. Public accommodation such as libraries and a shopping malls, a new apartment are built around a station. Parking lots and buildings go along with main road and the back of those,  residential area opens. Some road were digging out so telephone wires or water pipes or Internet cables or something exposed. When I keep going in the opposite direction of the road, I saw trees and field. There is an elementary school and a park that connects to green field.
That reminds me I have heard it when they planned a city in Helsinki, they placed residential area surrounded by green fields. It means that a green field makes a belt form so that residence areas and commerce area do not just continue. That enable people to enjoy the nature easily. These terms that everything -like green park area and school and public service, commercial area- is close to their home and work place is far from there is so typical situation in small city.

I feel something familiar to my hometown. The main difference between my hometown and here is inhabitants, I think. Many Swedish people used to live here historically, but a lot of migrants live now. It is a metropolitan area, but the wage charges are not high as Helsinki.  They can go to Helsinki in 30 minutes by train.  The residence rate of the migrant from the Middle East Asia and West Africa are high, and the second generation is born of it from such a reason. There was the girl brought up more than 13 years. In addition, it is said that children talked about 30 kinds of different languages in the youth center.

For me, images of the country area which seemed to be anywhere is similar and there's no variety of races but the image was broken.  If backgrounds are different, life rhythm and manners should be different naturally. The friction will be easy to be born, too.  Still what seem to be able to coexist may be because there is a fact that a young parent brings up a child. I feel like having known the pureness of the child exceed a cultural fence.

By the way when I explain and remember my hometown by words, what will I talk? Is it the smile of my family or the memory with my friend, a park I played around, the school or favorite shop? I feel attachment in the history and the culture of my hometown. 
There are some old temples or remains of big rock between areas of supermarkets and schools, parks. I really liked the gap and it was fun to learn its history.  I means exaggeratedly that history of can be called a source of my identity.

On the other hand, what will children or people who met in Senterri and Trapesa feel about the identity? What connect to their feeling strongly? What will they recognize as identity? I'm really interested in meanings of their living in Espoo Keskus.

Notes on Espoon Keskus

My general impression of Espoon Keskus is rather far from good: it’s a huge hostel and bus stop to Helsinki. 

I went there first in September to buy something for a friend, it was close to Kivenlahti, where I used to live and the name Espoo Centre sounded like a place worth seeing. It was not. I vividly remember the overwhelming feeling of nothingness that I experienced there, that made me want to leave immediately.So, so many levels of nothingness: nothing to do, nothing to see, nothing to experience.

People that you can see there divide into 2 groups: one of them is rushing to Helsinki to work/school/hang out, the other one are people, quite often ethnic, who just wander around, doing nothing in particular. There is not much to do, the only seemingly interesting place is the library. Almost no night-life, events, entertainment, for that people just take a train and leave the city. 

I remember that Mikko said during his presentation, that they want to preserve the identity of the place. What identity? It’s a huge mix of people, architecture, plans. Nothing really particular, distinct, not much I can say about the place other than it’s a mess. I would do anything to move out of there, perspective of returning home at night through these alleys doesn’t sound like a good idea. And when asked about the bars, pubs, evening entertainment, Mikko was not really able to answer. That only means that if there would be something, it would close at 23:00, like it usually happens. I really feel like the whole Finland is closed for the night and that makes it hard for people to really become a part of the community in the city’s life. The residents of  Espoon Keskus area differ so much that it’s hard to build any bond between them, any sense of community in this helpless place.

Please excuse me being so critical, I have a hard time adhering to reality in Finland. I live in Espoo and I feel its dynamics with full force, or rather lack of dynamics. It’s a place to sleep, between shifts or classes in Helsinki.

Espoon Keskus, first impression

2 days of excursions through the Espoon Keskus gave us, the group of students, attending the course “Media Intervention in the City” the opportunity to catch a glimpse of this part of the city. During these days our group visited several interesting places situated in this area.

For me the most interesting were several of them:

The kirkko/kyrkan/church situated in picturesque area near the lake with ducks, surrounded by old trees in a quiet and relaxing place. Near the church there is an old churchyard with different gravestones, they form an even more peaceful impression of this place. If we look at the church, we will see, that it is an old building. If we go inside the church, we will strengthen this thought – the wall made of stone, brick columns, beautiful chandeliers and frescos made on the walls and the ceiling, decorations on the chancel, stained-glass window – this place made me think and calmed me. This place might be a meeting point during religious events or while celebrating events that are typical only of this place – like a place, where the old traditions are kept and respected.

The second place that inspired me was the youth centre “Sentteri”. This place reminds me on kindergartens that are typical of Russia. I liked that there are a lot of such centres in Espoo, and that children of different age can go there and spend there some free time. In Russia only young children can go to kindergartens, though there is a possibility to spend spare time at school after classes for elder children. I liked the atmosphere of this place – children are not made to do smth special – they can choose by themselves what to do. There are a lot of activities for children – they can cook, play different games, or go to the gym, where they can play. An interesting thing – when we came to the centre in the afternoon, no one was watching TV, only some of them were playing PC games, and that’s really good. The interior is also very nice – I liked the girls’ room – there are a lot of things made by the children – paintings, craftworks. This place might be useful for making different events for children – celebrations, competitions or events connected with education.

The third place I would like to tell you about is the centre called “Trapesa”. This place with such a russian name – meaning meeting and eating together – fulfils a noble purpose – helps and supports people in need. To Trapesa can come migrants, people who don’t know the Finnish language, there are groups for women, for children, so that they can do different activities in there – study Finnish, do their hobbies and just find there asylum and help. There is a chapel, where you can pray, there are collected different cultures “under one roof”.

There are also some shopping centres which can help to attract tourists here or be meeting places for local residents. In one of them there is a library – also an interesting place to spare time there – you can find there books written in different languages – I found several shelves written in Russian, there are several cozy sofas, some installations, paintings – this place can attract youth and can be used for different events both for young people and grown-ups.

There are a lot of places here where people didn’t change the original landscape. There are interesting special things that we can only here – like a metal statue of a headless girl on a lantern and nobody knows what this means. This is a first impression of Espoon Keskus, there are several interesting places to visit and they can help people living here to communicate with each other or to attract people from neighbour areas here. 

Just my outlook on city

Espoo Keskus is a small and densely populated place. The town is located on a hilly terrain, that adds to the scenic beauty. The city grew rapidly at the end of the second half of the 20th century. In the city center there are a lot of gloomy buildings in the style of constructivism.

I was impressed by the old church, which has interesting frescoes. The Church is very different from other parts of the city. It is interesting that the church owns several buildings that echo its architectural style. Apart strange modernistic copper unfinished building.

Places of the city is definitely needed attention to public utilities.

Unfortunately, a large number of immigrants affects the purity of the city. But the situation is not as bad as I expected.

Despite the small population, the city has active social life. I really liked the library which constantly creates some events and attracting youth.

Trapesa is a special place. On the one hand it is quite normal center for dealing with new arrivals, but on the other hand it is the Orthodox Church. Many people do not know that in Africa there are countries where most people are Orthodox. In Trapesa there is a balance between the Orthodox Church and tolerance towards other religions. I think it is a merit of Raisa and other people who support this place.

Youth Center is also a curious place. There we can see the fusion of different cultures among children. I liked the approach of staff to work with children. Only a small proportion of children watching TV or playing video games. Most of the children playing in a mobile game.