Child Service
Child Service is a performance installation and first artistic part of my research project “Children and Childhoods in Intergenerational Performance Art”. The performance premiered in Mad House Helsinki performance art venue in November 2021 (premiere 13th Nov 2021).
Service has this meaning of assistance, benefit or taking care, but also the meaning of religious ceremony. In the service we pause and give our time and consideration to something outside of our ordinary daily tasks or entertainments. In Child Service – Lapsipalvelus I suggest that we, artists and spectators, give special attention to the idea of child and the children among us, childhoods lived, childhoods remembered, and childhoods imagined. There is no one message delivered through this service, no truth about the child, no sermon, but here we are serving our performance on children and childhoods, asking for the time and special attention of our audience for it.
Along with the transgenerational art and art making, the specific means and methods used in Child Service – Lapsipalvelus were verbatim techniques, imitation, and mimicry.
The artistic group: Nora Rinne, Joona Halonen, Katri Soini, Luca Sirviö and Ilmari Paananen, with child-artists Aale Rinne, Aarni Rinne, Oliver Tervolin and Okko Yli-Vakkuri.
Performance documentation photographs Saara Autere (2021). Photographs taken during a rehearsal. Reproduced with permission.
Performance languages English and Finnish.