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.

In this episode our guest host, curator and writer Eileen Isagon Skyers, leads a conversation about the dynamic interplay between artificial intelligence and contemporary art. We hear from artist Sofia Crespo, renowned for her mesmerizing generative art using neural networks, and artist Tuomas A. Laitinen, whose recent artistic practice includes an in-depth study of octopus intelligence. The episode delves into how AI redefines the boundaries of creativity, touching on the impact of machine learning on artistic expression, its ethical considerations, and the role of AI as both tool and collaborator in the creative process. Join us for an exploration into the evolving dialogue between art, technology, and the natural world. 

The episode features an excerpt of a sound piece by Robert M. Thomas, based on his close collaboration with Sofia Crespo on her piece Structures of Being at Antoni Gaudí’s famed Casa Batlló in Barcelona earlier this year. Mapping and zooming in on the micro life forms found at Casa Batlló, the piece is an immersive invitation for audiences to think about the life cycles and life forms we are necessarily a part of. Thomas formed the musical piece by writing generative algorithms that made intricate harmonic textures evoking natural growth and the stages of Gaudi’s life and development as an artist. 

In this episode, we delve into field of community activism in New York and Helsinki, through a discussion led by Ella Kaira and Matti Jänkälä from the Helsinki-based architectural practice Vokal. They are joined by organizer and activist Annie Carforo and curator, organizer and activist Monxo López to discuss both urgencies and longer-term goals of working towards a more equitable urban space. What kind of impact can community-led grassroots organizing have in a city like New York? What are the most urgent matters on either side of the Atlantic? What kind of recent triumphs and challenges to bring forth?

As the sound piece of this episode, we present two tracks, when the saints (interlude) and when the saints (reprise) by artist E. Jane’s alter ego MHYSA. Included in MHYSA’s album NEVAEH (2020), the tracks are a cover of an extended and prophetic version of the familiar song When the Saints Go Marching In. For the artist, this not-quite-as-familiar version of the song symbolizes people imagining a radically different world, and trying to call it into being through music.

The new season of FCINY’s Withstanding podcast begins with a deep dive into sound. Each Withstanding episode functions as a platform not only for discussions on urgent topics in the post-pandemic world, but also for sound-based artworks.

In this episode, we discuss sounding, listening and hearing with sound artist, composer and activist Antye Greie-Ripatti and multidisciplinary artist LaMont Hamilton. What kind of a material is sound for an artist? How to adjust oneself to practices of attentive listening? And what kind of social and communal potential lies within sound? Join in as we discuss various aspects of sound and listening, alongside Greie-Ripatti’s and Hamilton’s practices within sound-based art.

The Finnish Cultural Institute in New York's Exercises in Togetherness program continues with an online listening session on the Withstanding podcast platform, and in the company of curator Alaina Claire Feldman, artist and musician Miho Hatori, artist Josefina Nelimarkka and host Elina Suoyrjö. Aligning with recent and on-going work of the speakers, the session focuses on the practices of listening to nonhuman entities below and above sea levels. The discussion is a collaboration with the Mishkin Gallery.

How can we draw on non-visual observations of nature and science to register and account for the non-human and our inevitable coexistence? What kinds of listening practices can bring us closer to understanding and empathizing with various non-human beings and entities around us?

This episode is accompanied by Josefina Nelimarkka's essay Listening to the nonhuman: Sounds of air. In her essay, Nelimarkka elaborates on the topics of the podcast discussion in relation to her artistic practice and research. Please find the essay here: https://bit.ly/3FxNP7r

Exercises in Togetherness is kindly supported by New York State Council on the Arts.

Season 2, Episode 2: On Feminisms and Architecture

In this episode of Withstanding, we are joined by Lori Brown and Arvind Ramachandran to talk about feminist approaches to architecture. What kind of questions do we actually talk about when we talk about feminist approaches to architecture? What kind of tools do feminist architects and scholars of architecture offer to the field? At the end of the episode, we present a new sound collage by Jonna Karanka, consisting of three previously published sound pieces. The episode is moderated by Tiffany Lambert, Curator of Architecture and Design at the FCINY.

Lori Brown is a scholar and architect, and among other things, the co-founder of ArchiteXX, a group dedicated to transforming the architecture profession for women. Arvind Ramachandran is a Helsinki-based architect, organiser and stand-up comedian. Jonna Karanka is a multidisciplinary artist working mainly with textile and sound.

Season two of Withstanding is kindly supported by the New York State Council on the Arts.

Withstanding is hosted by Elina Suoyrjö, FCINY’s Director of Programs.

https://fciny.org/projects/withstanding

In the first episode of the second season of Withstanding, we are joined by Efe Ogbeide and Stephen Zacks to talk about the futures of urban planning. How to practice participatory urban planning, that helps to create more livable, inclusive and equal cities? How to implement hyperlocal strategies into a vaster planetary scale?  At the end of the episode, we present the sound piece "focus.point.shoot" (2021) by DeForrest Brown, Jr.

DeForrest Brown, Jr. is a musician and theorist, producing digital audio and extended media as Speaker Music. Efe Ogbeide is a co-founder of Helsinki-based participatory urban planning office FEMMA Planning. Stephen Zacks is an advocacy journalist and organizer based in New York City.

Withstanding is hosted by Elina Suoyrjö, FCINY’s Director of Programs.

https://fciny.org/projects/withstanding

In this episode, we are joined by curators Ceci Moss and Paul O’Neill, to discuss the work done at Gas in Los Angeles and PUBLICS in Helsinki. How do these versatile organizations and platforms work together with artists, communities and other organizations in making art public? How has the pandemic affected smaller non-profit art organizations, and how to reorganize in the verge of the post-pandemic era? The episode features the sound piece diptych The Flower Garden / Flower Garden Generator by art collective MSHR, formed by Birch Cooper and Brenna Murphy

Ceci Moss is a curator, writer and educator. She is the founder of Gas, a mobile, autonomous, experimental, and networked platform for contemporary art based in Los Angeles. Paul O’Neill is an Irish curator, artist, writer and educator, and the Artistic Director of PUBLICS. PUBLICS is a curatorial agency and event space with a dedicated library and reading room in Helsinki. MSHR is the art collective of Birch Cooper and Brenna Murphy. The duo collaboratively builds and explores sculptural electronic systems that take form as audiovisual compositions, performances and installations.

Withstanding is hosted by Elina Suoyrjö, FCINY’s Director of Programs.

https://fciny.org/projects/withstanding

In this episode, we discuss artistic practices focused on public spaces together with artists Chloë Bass and Mark Niskanen. What can collaboration mean in an artistic process? How has the pandemic affected the artists’ practices? How can institutions better support artists making work for vast audiences outside museum walls? The episode features audio documentation of the piece Ghost Light (2020) by artists Mark Niskanen and Jani-Matti Salo, and cultural anthropologist Inkeri Aula. The episode is accompanied by an essay on public art and abolition by Chloë Bass, which can be accessed on the FCINY's website.

Chloë Bass is a multiform conceptual artist working in performance, situation, conversation, publication, and installation. Mark Niskanen is a multidisciplinary artist working with lens-based media, sound, music, and installations. Primarily working in collaboration with Jani-Matti Salo, the artist duo Niskanen & Salo creates installations that weave together everyday phenomena and technologies.

Withstanding is hosted by Elina Suoyrjö, FCINY’s Director of Programs.