The third triennial, House Games 2011 was open for two hours every day for eight days. Twenty-four artists, from Finland as well as other parts of Europe, North America, Asia and Africa, presented work related to the home, house and/or family. This years’ artists focused on a basic, if not primary aspect of the home: the living ephemeral experience of life (in no specific order): death, birth, play, decaying/aging, collecting and remembering.
The House Games exhibition was accompanied by a series of events which took place every evening between 5 and 7pm. These events included: performances, artist talks, eavesdrop concerts, a displaced sound-environment, a cyberspace dinner party, and a sound piece composed for the visitors to play. This year House Games collaborated closely with several Finnish artist-groups: The Central Finnish Media-Artist Representative work-group, Live Herring provided one of the House Games artists, Timo Wright, as part of their Live Herring ’11 event; the Off/Balance Dance-group performed an abridged and adapted version of their new, un-previewed, performance “Kynnyksellä”; the artist-group Tupa 10 worked together for the first time on a collaborative installation which treated ideas of collection, hording and saving; and a local internet radio, Radio Hear broadcast live from and into House Games. The exhibition attracted 159 visitors in 20 hours, and four artworks were sold. The average length of a visit was between 40 minutes and 90 minutes. The exhibition also received two full-page articles in local and regional newspapers (Keskisuomalainen and K-S viikko) and one radio interview which was transcribed on the national Yle internet news page. House Games 2011 was in part sponsored by a project grant from the Central Finland Arts Council. |