HIAP - Helsinki International Artist Programme
HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme was founded in 1998 by a coalition of artists and arts organisations. At present, it is an international art centre of eight studio apartments, four guest apartments, an exhibition space as well as a project room. In the beginning, HIAP was based in Cable Factory, former Nokia factory building converted in the end of 1980’s into the largest cultural centre in Finland. In 2009 HIAP was given the responsibility of re-establishing international residency activities at the UNESCO World Heritage fortress island of Suomenlinna after the residencies of Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art – NIFCA had been closed down. The combined residency spaces of Cable Factory and Suomenlinna host presently around 100 international artists, curators and researchers every year. In addition, events and exhibitions are organised annually in connection with the residencies.
HIAP aims to run a residency programme that addresses contemporary concerns in art and society. Its programme is actively developed with various thematic projects, covering issues such as coexistence, human induced ecological changes and their many ethical, social and political implications. The local, national and international networks of HIAP form an extended community of active art practitioners and thinkers.
In Frontiers in Retreat, HIAP offers the majority of the participating artists research visits and longer residencies. HIAP allows for the artists-in-residence insight into the ecological concerns related to contemporary and future food production, extracting industries, multispecies coexistence, the highly polluted Baltic Sea. In collaboration with locally based research and higher education institutions HIAP allows the artists access to a range of sources in the Baltic Sea archipelago.
As coordinator of the Frontiers project HIAP takes care of the network structure on which the collaboration, research, production and outreach are based on. HIAP coordinates the planning, assessment and implementation of the overall project activities.
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