24.5.2023

RiverBulls (Letter to Vladimir Putin) Screening

In honor of the last week of the Derby exhibition, Kunsthalle will show Teemu Mäki’s documentary RiverBulls (Letter to Vladimir Putin) in Kalevan Navetta’s Hugo event space on Wednesday 24.5. at 6 p.m. The artist Teemu Mäki will be present at the screening. The duration of the film is 58 minutes. The film has English subtitle. The screening includes to the admission fee to Kunsthalle Seinäjoki 6/4€.

Teemu Mäki has made a documentary film about the RiverBulls team of Seinäjoen Taitoluistelijat. Before getting to know the team, he hadn’t even heard of their sport. The works describe the men’s synchronised skating team as a unique phenomenon and reflect on the ways of being a man in this world. The first part of the documentary shows the team’s competition program for the 2022–2023 season and brings out the skaters’ thoughts about their hobby. This time, the competition program was based on the artist’s proposal to Toivo Kuula’s adaptations
of two southern Ostrobothnian folk songs Niin Kauan Minä Tramppaan (I Am Gonna Trample) and Tuuli Se Taivutti Koivun Larvan (Wind Bent the Birchtop). In the second part of the film, the perspective expands. The artist’s memories of what it was like to be a man in southern Ostrobothnia in his youth are brought into the narrative of the film, alongside the current Russian president Vladimir Putin, who is known to enjoy judo, ice hockey, and warfare, among other things. At the end of the letter heard in the film, Teemu invites Vladimir to Seinäjoki to try a different
way of being a man on skates. The film’s third part introduces two composers who died because of the war—Toivo Kuula and the Ukrainian Hanna Havrylets— and shows a duet bet ween two male skaters.

Script and direction: Teemu Mäki, Production company: ISLE Ar t Industries O y. Producer Janiv Oskár

Watch RIVERBULLS (A LETTER TO VLADIMIR PUTIN) Documentary 2023 teaser-video from Youtube.

Teemu Mäki (b.1967) is a writer, visual artist, theatre and film director, and researcher. In his doctoral dissertation, Mäki considered the intersections of art, philosophy, and politics. In his book of essays, Taiteen tehtävä, he discussed the role of art for both the individual and society. In recent years, he has examined, e.g. themes of gender diversity, the concentration of power and wealth, and human-caused mass extinction. Mäki is currently the chair of the Artists’ Association of Finland.

Derby is an art exhibition about sports. The exhibition studies the numerous sports activities in Seinäjoki and asks what art and sports have in common. Kunsthalle Seinäjoki invited six artists and five local sports communities to join the exhibition project.