Praying is a performance installation, in which performance, video, ceramic sculptures and textiles collaborate to create an interactive praying room. The performance, built from exercises based on meditation, concentration, and movement improvisation, will divert attention from the self to the surrounding world by exploring the presence of the body, movement, and space.

The bodily presence of the performers, the performative exercise, the visual elements of the installation, the audience, and the structures of the space create ambivalent, intimate, and collective compositions of presence.

Praying is an exercise for a connection, a search for a possibility of dialogue in the form of movement. The aim of the exercise is to concentrate on the exercise itself. The piece is an exercise for empathy with surroundings, and away from the purposefulness of performance, efficiency, benefit, success, and destination. Praying is an exercise of presence and concentration also for the audience.

Watch the trailer

The piece can be experienced as an installation between 11.-13.6. There are two performances in the installation:

11.6. at 18:00-19:30 Note! The installation is closed 30 min prior the performances between 17:30-18:00.
12.6. at 14:00-15:30 Note! The installation is closed 30 min prior the performances between 13:30-14:00.

The audience is invited to enter and leave the space as they wish also during the performances. The number of people in the space is limited according the current restrictions being now 10 persons.

Saija Alexandra Kangasniemi (b. 1985) is an artist working in Helsinki and Paris. She works extensively in the fields of performance, film, ceramics, and textiles. Her praxis of body and movement explores form and composition. She is currently finishing her Master of Arts degree in the Visual Culture and Contemporary Art program at Aalto University. She has also studied performance, dance, and choreography at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts in Paris, and design at the Lahti Institute of Design.

Coreography, installation, and costume design: Saija Alexandra Kangasniemi
Coreography assistance: Emilia Nevä, Anna Maria Häkkinen & Laura Jantunen
Sound design: Tatu Rönkkö
Video and photography: Sidonie Ronfard
Performers: Emilia Nevä, Laura Jantunen & Saija Alexandra Kangasniemi
Performers on video: Félix Touzalin, Daniel Nicolaevsky Maria, Diane Chéry, Sehyoung Lee & Saija Alexandra Kangasniemi

Funded by Koneen Säätiö.