Essi Kummu, Minna Henriksson & Ylimuonion urheiluteatteri: Struggle for Art and Chastity – A Reading Theater Concert
Taistelu taiteesta ja siveellisyydestä, written and directed by author Essi Kummu and performed by the Ylimuonion urheiluteatteri, traces how works published in the 1930s and 1940s – which were feminist and radical in many ways – were received in literary circles, and how their feminist leftists political stance was simply not recognised by influential critics at the time.
The reception was often even misogynistic. This has led to the marginalization and oblivion of the most sihnificant female writers of the time. The reading theatre will read aloud excerpts from the 1930s work of Iris Uurro , Tyyne Maija Salminen , Elvi Sinervo and Katri Vala . They were founding members of the left-wing writers' group Kiila, founded in 1936.
The work is based on Minna Henriksson's artwork-in-processKiila Feminist Archive , which traces feminist motives for the group's founding alongside the left-wing and anti-fascism ideologies associated with it. Kiila's archives from the 1930s have been lost and later historiography has not documented feminist themes within them. Henriksson has sought to uncover intersections of feminism and leftism through the published works of these writers who worked in Kiila in the 1930s, which may have been the motive for the group's founding.
The literary excerpts are interspersed with lectures on the critical reception of the works. A picture emerges of the ways in which women writers have been subjugated and discouraged over time. The women of Kiila are a case in point in the reading theatre, but unfortunately, many other writers, visual artists and composers have suffered the same fate. History is full of forgotten female artists. How could we bring their works into a new light?
Photo: Marika Kastelli
SCHEDULE
Saturday 23 May at 6:00 PM
LOCATION
Parvisali, House of Text
Lintulahdenkatu 3, 00530 Helsinki
LANGUAGE
Finnish
TICKETS
€10-€40
Ticket office
