April 9, at 12 - 4 PM the Finnish Society for Aesthetics organized, together with Third Space gallery (Tarkk'ampujankatu 18) its annual spring seminar with the title CONSENSUS / DISSENSUS: Art and Politics (concepts borrowed from Jacques Ranciere).
The idea was to bring together people working in the melting point of art, aesthetics and politics in the Helsinki area. Organized by Max Ryynänen, the chair of the society, and the society's new member Raine Vasquez, the seminar included free man-made snacks (cooked by the organizers) and some wine.
Raine Vasquez spoke about the pros and cons of political art, and got a detailed commentary by one of the society's young veterans, Sanna Lehtinen. Oleksandra Sushchenko discussed institutionalization and aesthetic values in the era of knowledge reproduction (commentator: Max Ryynänen).
After the lunch break art theorist and editor of the journal Rab rab Sezgin Boynik gave a long talk about the topic of thinking outside of the state. Commentator for this speech was Ahmed Al-Nawas. In the end Scott Elliott discussed architecture, affect and language with the subtitle communication between bodies, and got a profound commentary from Pajari Räsänen.
All speeches were sharp and the warm atmosphere encouraged people to discuss and learn to know each other. Names mentioned in the debates included Schelling, Luhman, Hegel, Ranciere, Marx and Deleuze.
Third Space gallery is very small in size, so the amount of 20+ guests was quite the maximum for this event.
