Please give us more, please. Be more extra, please.

MORE, Please is an artists run soon to be association based in Helsinki, Finland with a diverse global network. We will play, perform, exhibit, workshop, dance a lot, get louder, dirtier, share care and be more of whatever we can be.

The underlying research will be based on a postcolonial historical radicalization through art practices and networking. The founding artists are interested in land, material and inter-generational traumas as well as contemporary and collective belonging and community.

MORE, Please act as hosts and social animators to create a portal of artistic happenings first mainly in Helsinki but also the peripheries of Finland and other Nordic countries as well. We will invite artists in all forms from our vast International network and our new local expanding art colleagues web to participate in the happenings. The existing art structures in Finland and in other Western societies are doing good, some things are doing well, but the systems feel safe and not in the happy no triggers safe space kind of way. We want to be the jumping castle in the art city. It is not just for kids, it is for everyone. Where is the enthusiasm, the mess, the punk and the progressive? We understand the seriousness and want to address it, however we also want the artists and people we collaborate with to jump high and trust in the fall. We will be there on time to support. We will encourage bold behavior from global emerging artists whether young or old. The open transparent conversation and process is more important than the final outcomes. The audience is smarter than the smoke and mirrors. The relationships between all parties are crucial to the continual success and growth of the network.

coming as soon as we are able.

The ‘serious topical’ deserves also an openness to be playful. We promise to be punctual and respect the artists we work with as well as the viewers and participants who come to work and play with us.

Language, safe space practice, accessing intimacy, inter-connectivity and inclusivity are core interests to addressing the programming. They support artists with families in all dynamics. How the artists use their mediums, forms and sounds will be supported technically and otherwise.

Arvid van der Rijt an Indo-European and Juliana Irene Smith an Iranian American met at the Supermarket Art Fair 2016 in Stockholm. They have made their permanent base in Finland and enjoy organizing art events, collaborating with others and being together. They will never complain about being bored. The more is not gluttony, we like sharing. The more is a belief to challenge each other and push, break and redefine the current non-profit art practice alone together, in person hopefully and through other necessary inter-connective mediums.

Juliana Irene Smith is the founder of ALMA MARTHA, a project space and artists non-profit which ran from 2014 - 2017 in Cape Town, South Africa.

Arvid van der Rijt is the co-Founder of Filmverkstaden, an international analogue audio video platform based in Vaasa, Finland which began in 2011.