Final

The needle took it's place succesfully. I managed to install the books in the turning point of the metro before first passengers came in. There were some smiles and looks that do not belong to normal metro-trip. 12 books out of 32 were taken away by passengers. 

Visit to Turku and planning

Got the books. Now in Turku but coming to Helsinki 13.57 today.

At the moment I feel good. A read Maarit Verronen's new novel when coming here this morning. It is about socoety that is becoming more and more demanding, controlling, gripping... I feel my "Needle", the books I will install in the metro is the right thing to do. It is a piece of chaos needed to cjange the atmosphere, safe but it has potential somehow...

This morning I looked the metro-wagon in a different way. Did kind of an architecture for my piece, planned my movements an timing. I still don't be sure how I'll go to the turning point of the metro, the place after final station. Two options: go and try to hide so cameras and the driver don't see or just go casually, reading a paper and saying hi! to the driver...

4 hours..

The Metro of Helsinki, images

A Shipment to East or West

On Friday the passengers of Helsinki's Metro will receive a gift. I am planning to set my Friend's, Lasse Nordlund's book "Elämämme perusteista"/"On the Basis of our Life" on every seat of a single metro-wagon.

This book will be published nationally on this friday in Tampere. Lasse has been living outside monetary economy for more than ten years in Finland! He has made his garments himself from the fibre plants he has grown etc. A truly "Buy Nothing Day Everyday"-person. In Finland we have "Buy Nothing Day" on Friday  28th November this year.

So I'll test. What happens when there is something on your seat when you want to sit? It can be sopmeones bag, a "Metro" newspaper of in this case a book that everyone else in this particular metro will notice and are forced to react. Does this kind of act replace the ongoing reality with newone for a moment? Is a sense of temporary community created?

Ripping the predictable patterns of everyday life is one of the most important abilities/possibilities of Art, isn't it?

Density in Helsinki's Metro

Advertising is taking more and more space in urban landscapes. Ads are also filling public transport in notable way. In Helsinki's metro there were firstly ads in the each end of metro-wagon. Then came posters next to doors, then small A4 size ads to the poles and recently the bottom of the windows were commercialized. 

There used to be two free newspapers in Helsinki's metros; the "Red one" and the "Green one", The "100" and the "Metro". Only "Metro" survived. In morning rush-hour almost everyone is reading this paper at the same time. So in a way virtually all readers share the same physical and mental landscape in these lovely orange-colored wagons. Anyway these phenomena are experienced quite individually, no sense of communality exists, or at least is hard to be aware of it.

With my acupuncture, I'd like to create an inner sameness for the moment in rush-hour metro. A temporary moment of belongingness similar like yesterdays effusive snowfall.  

Snow is the best Acupuncture for Helsinki

This white cold mass our city got yesterday creates a sense of communality in a positive way. Previous dark weeks were also shared experience for people of Helsinki.

Physically it makes everyday life more difficult by slowing the traffic etc. Mentally we received an heavenly acupuncture needle. In the same boat we are now. Passengers pushing stucked tram in a storm, habitants making paths to common areas, parks. Every previous step makes our walking easier, accumulating communal effort...

-Joel R