By Vali
drawings: Charlotte Dumortier
some disturbing candy found in a vending machine at Helsinki airport
We were kindly hosted by hard-working festival coordinator Kati and by local cool kid Tiia. At Kati's place we met Chantal Malambri from the crack! festival in Rome which we attended earlier this year.
Kati told us about a party for the release of the new Kuti magazine. "My friend is the DJ. His name is DJ Kalakukkos. That's a traditional dish, it's like a fish in a bread."
That night we ran into canadian artist Julie Delporte. She was a guest at the festival, presenting her new book Journal ( Koyama press), a colourful diary that first appeared in french on her blog. The theme of this years' festival was North America, and guests included Michael DeForge, John Martz, Philippe Girardin, Joe Ollmann, Lili Carré and Howard Chacowitz.
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Kati told us about a party for the release of the new Kuti magazine. "My friend is the DJ. His name is DJ Kalakukkos. That's a traditional dish, it's like a fish in a bread."
That night we ran into canadian artist Julie Delporte. She was a guest at the festival, presenting her new book Journal ( Koyama press), a colourful diary that first appeared in french on her blog. The theme of this years' festival was North America, and guests included Michael DeForge, John Martz, Philippe Girardin, Joe Ollmann, Lili Carré and Howard Chacowitz.
DJ fish in bread
At the tent, we were located between David Kerr from Glasgow and the polish representative for the festival Ligatura in Poznań, Magda. Our other neighbors included kuš! from Latvia and Manuel 'Lolo' from Spain, who owns the coolest gallery in Madrid, Watdafac. There were some Simon Hanselmann originals on his table and we were dying. Apparently Lolo also means "really big tits" in finnish. "Everybody laughs when I tell them my name." We also had our share of hairy tits-related reactions. Somebody thought we were called "heritage". I'm happy we're not called heritage.
We looked around and were amazed by the number of men with long hair and long beards. "Vikings", said Thijs. The style of the Helsinki people was absolutely mad compared to Belgium. While we were sitting at the table, we spotted rainbow hair, a flower dress on a big man whose cap said I'M NASTY, a skinny man in impossibly tight and shiny latex pants, school girls from a school in hell, a man who had shaved his hair like he put his head in a toaster, and many more. It was refreshing and heartwarming to see all those true anti-conformists.
Somewhere in between selling books, we met a guy from Antwerp called Grimm, who emigrated to Helsinki. To our great amusement, his friend made up finnish-sounding nicknames for us. He had some problems with Thijs: "what's his last name? Okay, he can be Smit".
On friday there was a drawing battle at a club called Dubrovnic. The canadians were battling the fins in a ruthless combat that involved trashing eachother's drawing at the end. A man in a black suit, torn leggings and pilot goggles called "Black Peider" (not spider) was running the show beautifully. He was also playing in the band on saturday's event in a place called Mascot. The canadians won by writing CANADA all over the fins' drawing, and some drinking and dancing ensued.
We were staying in Malmi, "the ghetto". There were lovely little wooden houses with gardens, squirrels , hares and a hedgehog. "OOOh what IS that" screamed Charlotte as she first spotted the prickly little creature running in the grass. "Mi amore" shouted Chantal. "Ouch", I said, as I tried to pet it.
The poor animal waited patiently for the drunken girls to go away. "In finnish, it's called Siili", Kati explained.
The limited finnish we learned so far didn't help us to order a pizza in Malmi. We tried to explain 'vegetarian' to somebody who didn't speak english by drawing pictures of animals that we crossed out. In the end he called his colleague and the pizza was ordered through the phone.
Other culinary experiences included a chinese restaurant named Bamboo center. It was run by a small bossy lady who made herself known by shouting "chopstiiiicks! who wants chopstiiiicks!"
For nine euros I got a delicious, full plate of curry tofu.
We also tasted 'Salmari', liquid salty licorice with alcohol. Charlotte and I agreed it was the best drink that was ever made. Another popular finnish drink is Lonkero, which contains gin, means "tentacle" and was introduced especially for the 1952 summer Olympics as a compromise during the prohibition.
On the last evening, we said goodbye to all the sweet people we met, and almost missed our train back to the ghetto. Thanks to Tiia who looked up the schedule, we were saved from freezing to death in the finnish night (just kidding, the weather was actually better than in Belgium).
The organisation of the festival was incredible. We are so thankful to everybody who worked so hard to make it all possible. It's our hope to come back next year!
We looked around and were amazed by the number of men with long hair and long beards. "Vikings", said Thijs. The style of the Helsinki people was absolutely mad compared to Belgium. While we were sitting at the table, we spotted rainbow hair, a flower dress on a big man whose cap said I'M NASTY, a skinny man in impossibly tight and shiny latex pants, school girls from a school in hell, a man who had shaved his hair like he put his head in a toaster, and many more. It was refreshing and heartwarming to see all those true anti-conformists.
Somewhere in between selling books, we met a guy from Antwerp called Grimm, who emigrated to Helsinki. To our great amusement, his friend made up finnish-sounding nicknames for us. He had some problems with Thijs: "what's his last name? Okay, he can be Smit".
On friday there was a drawing battle at a club called Dubrovnic. The canadians were battling the fins in a ruthless combat that involved trashing eachother's drawing at the end. A man in a black suit, torn leggings and pilot goggles called "Black Peider" (not spider) was running the show beautifully. He was also playing in the band on saturday's event in a place called Mascot. The canadians won by writing CANADA all over the fins' drawing, and some drinking and dancing ensued.
We were staying in Malmi, "the ghetto". There were lovely little wooden houses with gardens, squirrels , hares and a hedgehog. "OOOh what IS that" screamed Charlotte as she first spotted the prickly little creature running in the grass. "Mi amore" shouted Chantal. "Ouch", I said, as I tried to pet it.
The poor animal waited patiently for the drunken girls to go away. "In finnish, it's called Siili", Kati explained.
The limited finnish we learned so far didn't help us to order a pizza in Malmi. We tried to explain 'vegetarian' to somebody who didn't speak english by drawing pictures of animals that we crossed out. In the end he called his colleague and the pizza was ordered through the phone.
Other culinary experiences included a chinese restaurant named Bamboo center. It was run by a small bossy lady who made herself known by shouting "chopstiiiicks! who wants chopstiiiicks!"
For nine euros I got a delicious, full plate of curry tofu.
We also tasted 'Salmari', liquid salty licorice with alcohol. Charlotte and I agreed it was the best drink that was ever made. Another popular finnish drink is Lonkero, which contains gin, means "tentacle" and was introduced especially for the 1952 summer Olympics as a compromise during the prohibition.
On the last evening, we said goodbye to all the sweet people we met, and almost missed our train back to the ghetto. Thanks to Tiia who looked up the schedule, we were saved from freezing to death in the finnish night (just kidding, the weather was actually better than in Belgium).
The organisation of the festival was incredible. We are so thankful to everybody who worked so hard to make it all possible. It's our hope to come back next year!
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