Company Ethos (Pile of thoughts attempted to be put in words describing our new company's motives). Something that has been brewing as part of my NHLP- EU work).
Ohmygosh! Office - For circus, is an abstract office led by Imogen Huzel and Inka Pehkonen.
Our desire is to 1. Uncomrpromisingly and 2. Unpretensiously commit to our vision of what circus can be, and make shit happen!
Using the resources we have and whatever artistic medium best serves our vision, we create from a punk, playful, and politically left playground. Fueled by love we frequently incorporate topics of feminism, freedom of speech, friendship, community, sexuality, and gender roles!
We approach our work with a clown mentality, with a love for stupidity and tragedy - and of course our Finnish-English love for sarcasm.
With a specific focus on those who identify as female, we aim to create an open atmosphere for artistic processes and experiments to grow and find their tangible place in the world. For us the office creates a platform to protest, question beliefs and continue growing, as people and as artists.
We work with:
Individuals who believe the world would benefit from being more empathic, diverse and tolerant.
Beings who are passionate about countercultures and question the system.
Folk who are interested in laughable, confusing and emerging aesthetics.
Humans who do not rely on resources rather work with what they have.
How we work:
We give as much importance to all areas of artistry within our work, scenography, the costumes, visual and audio landscape, graphic design etc. Circus is part of the bigger artistic picture.
We aim to work sustainably with each other, the environment and economically.
We create across mediums, circus shows, short films, visual art books, QA discussions, live art! Etc.
We commit to ideas while they are fresh and exciting and follow the natural changing tide of them.
We work with a growth mentality, staying playful, curious and open.
We wish to stay away from the highbrow art culture and keep our work accessible and grounded.
When you were young did you make shows for your parents and relatives where you just fully go for the most random idea with full conviction, 100%? Oh my gosh, we are still in this realm, except now we need to convince a normal bunch of unrelated humans that what we are doing is fantastic…and also worthwhile! And perhaps nowadays our work is not made for our relatives. But yes, those who care for us, this is our full-time job, we make money, and have homes, it ain't a hobby!
More about our work:
With a project-based approach, we are diving into a range of different processes, some short, some longitudinal, some live, some analogue, some digital, some scrappy and some polished. We’re keeping a tally of these works by numbering the projects and are currently at number 6!
Our plan isn't to be the next big thing, it’s to work in a way which is authentic to our process and gives a platform for ourselves and others to have a fulfilling career that creates uncompromising work which we feel is relevant to the current time.
We are inspired by people who’ve against the odds of adversity and opportunity stayed committed to their visions and agendas, creatives such as Vivienne Westwood, Klaus Nomi and People Show we thank you for exploding out of tidy constructed boxes and showing that these constraints are not serving artistic quality.. We feel connected to this attitude! We believe the DIY mentality can exist with the pro mentality, that aesthetics can be artful yet tacky and that circus can be skilled and still sloppy. We hold space for these contradictions, for imperfection, and instead put the importance on finding the soul of artistic work and not limiting creative possibility. We believe when projects have soul then even if people don’t get it, they feel it. We believe creative artistic expressions can resonate stronger than words and transcend language barriers. It tasks an element of risk, belief and patience to work in this way, but if it were easy we’d probably not be satisfied.
Nomadische Berliner
Nomadic tour life
Nomad office
No mad
No
Yes, we are Berlin based, we have German, Finnish, English and Swedish connections to the office, yet these branches are currently #outofoffice. Our office is an abstract construct, we are frequently #officeingfrom Inka’s dining room, Imogen’s floor, various dance studios, circus training halls, Berlin cafes and parks!
In the end we are just trying to make peace with how much office work is required to be a circus artist… ‘Our goal is to not complain about the system we fight to get funded by, but rather use the resources we have and find other ways to sustain our work which relies on a more internal model. - What you have is more important than what you don’t have’.
Watch the space - website and insta coming.
