Withstanding

Ergonomics for the Mind: Ida Kukkapuro and Michael Yarisnky on Yrjö Kukkapuro’s Design Philosophy

In the fifth episode of Withstanding, season 5, designer-in-residence Ida Kukkapuro joins Michael Yarinsky, co-founder of Office of Tangible Space, to talk about her grandfather, designer Yrjö Kukkapuro, Studio Kukkapuro, and the continued relevance of his design philosophy today. The two are at the Office of Tangible Space, surrounded by Kukkapuro’s designs: Ida is sitting in the Experiment chair, designed by her grandfather in the 1980s, while Michael is sitting in the Carousel chair from the 1960s.

In  this episode artists Jade Kallio and Mette Sterre are joined in a discussion recorded during their overlapping residencies at ISCP in New York. Although they primarily work in different media and artistic practices, they quickly recognized a shared set of concerns and similarities that run through both of their practices. Creating outside of the boxes of how we understand identity, gender, technology, society norms and the body. 

Throughout the conversation, Kallio and Sterre reflect on the role of categorization, why we rely on it, how it structures our social and political realities, and what artistic practice can offer as an alternative. This episode is infused with humor, as this is something Both Kallio and Sterre uses as a tool and strategy when creating. In the second half of the episode, the conversation shifts from process to practice as the artists watch and respond to selections from each other's work. 

On the third episode of Withstanding Podcast Season 5, artist and certified hypnotherapist Aapo Nikkanen is joined by artist and educator Flora Bouteille for an intimate conversation about the worlds that we can build with art. 

Working around the same themes in their practices, the artist couple explores the intersections of hypnosis, simulation, and cognitive artistic practices in performance and photography. The intimate conversation moves from the history of hypnosis through framing cognitive art to a broader question: what is the future of art in a world where everything seems possible?

Season 5 of the Withstanding podcast continues as FCINY’s Artists-in-Residence, iida Jonsson and ssi Saarinen, invite Dr. Randall Sell to discuss the history of LGBTQIA+ research, the non-binary underworld of early 20th-century New York, and the life of Jennie June – one of the first transgender individuals to publish an autobiographical text.

On the table lies "Autobiography of an Androgyne" by Jennie June, published in 1918. But why was the autobiography published as a medical text? What was Jennie June’s true identity? And how might June respond to today’s discussions on the themes she pioneered?

The fifth season of FCINY’s podcast focuses on highlighting Finnish artists research, work and exhibitions in New York. This program is made possible with support from the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture and the New York State Council on the Arts.

Curator Gemma Rolls-Bentley is joined by Finnish artist Nastja Säde Rönkkö to discuss Rönkkö’s work in video, performance, installation, and text. Discussing the video work Those Who Kept the Light, the artist and Rolls-Bentley will explore Rönkkö’s research into lighthouse keepers, the history of lesbian artistry connecting to shorelines, and the modern queering of feminist maritime mythologies. Guests are invited to dream of new ways longing can lead to radical environmental thoughts and protections.

The fifth season of FCINY’s podcast focuses on highlighting Finnish artists research, work and exhibitions in New York. This program is made possible with support from the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture and the New York State Council on the Arts.

To conclude season four of FCINY’s Withstanding podcast, we invite you to delve into a generous conversation on Indigenous approaches in the field of contemporary art with the lead of guest moderator, artist and curator Rachel Martin, together with invited speakers, weaver and photographer Sydney Akagi, and artist Carola Grahn.

As the discussion spans from relations between tradition and contemporaneity in Indigenous art practices to understanding activism as part of Indigenous work, the listeners get close insights into the three speakers’ individual and rich practices in the field of contemporary art, and what it entails to operate in the field as an Indigenous artist.

The fourth season of FCINY’s podcast focuses on highlighting and honoring Indigenous practices in art, architecture and design. This program is made possible with support from the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture and the New York State Council on the Arts.

In this new episode, we get to listen in on a robust and forward-looking conversation about Indigenous fashion design with fashion and textile designer Patricia Michaels from the Southwest US and fashion designer and textile artist Ramona Salo from the Arctic North. The conversation, led by interdisciplinary artist and scholar Sariah Park, flows from insights on materialities, techniques and storytelling to fashion as a form of sovereignty.

How can garments and textiles serve as forms of storytelling? How do cultural and spiritual values become embedded in design processes? What does solidarity across Indigenous communities look like in the world of fashion and design? How to overcome structural or institutional challenges as an Indigenous designer?

The fourth season of FCINY’s podcast focuses on highlighting and honoring Indigenous practices in art, architecture and design. This program is made possible with support from the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture and the New York State Council on the Arts.

In this episode, we delve into questions and themes in Indigenous architectural practices and discourses with the lead of guest host Erin Ggaadimits Ivalu Gingrich, and invited speakers Anjelica S. Gallegos and Joar Nango. Through the speakers’ practices in the field of architecture, art, and design, the discussion brings up various notions elemental to Indigenous approaches to the built environment, from situatedness and cohabitation to nomadic and holistic understandings of our relations with land, place, and other ecosystems.

How can built environment be understood beyond structures of control? How to divert settler colonial human-centered approaches within the field of architecture, and perceive land, seasonality, and our more-than-human cohabitants as the starting point of design? What if we approached untouched wilderness as an Indigenous architecture?

The fourth season of FCINY’s podcast focuses on highlighting and honoring Indigenous practices in art, architecture and design. This program is made possible with support from the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture and the New York State Council on the Arts.

Withstanding returns with a new season!

In February 2025, FCINY organized an evening of performances and a discussion titled Indigenous Drag Excellence at Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in New York City, in collaboration with Riddu Riđđu Festival and the Finnish-Norwegian Cultural Institute. The evening featured performances by drag artists Aunty Tamara, Feather Talia, Randy River, and Ritni Tears.

The performances were followed by a joint discussion touching upon a variety of topics from the soup of gender to drag herstories and histories, and to the significance of drag to Queer Indigenous communities. The discussion was led by New York-based artist and educator MX Oops. The first episode of the new Withstanding season features this discussion in its entirety.

The fourth season of FCINY’s podcast focuses on highlighting and honoring Indigenous practices in art, architecture and design. This program is made possible with support from the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture and the New York State Council on the Arts.

In this episode, our guest host Ervin Latimer, fashion designer and founder of label Latimmier, leads us to a conversation on sustainability in the fashion industry, with specific focus on the perspective of the body and questions of gender and size. He is joined by fashion designer Henna Lampinen, the winner of the Finnish Young Designer of the Year Award in 2023, and Steven Cox and Daniel Silver, designers behind the New York fashion label Duckie Brown.

Together the designers raise topical questions regarding social sustainability and responsibility in the fashion world: what kind of bodies does the high fashion industry serve? How to bring a variety of bodies into the forefront? How to work beyond the gender dichotomy traditionally defining design work?

The episode features the sound piece Prelude to Extinct by artists Teo Ala-Ruona and Tuukka Haapakorpi. The collaboratively created and emotion-evoking piece directs our attention to the body as a processual being with its cavities, hollows and unmapped regions.