SPREADING THE WORD ABOUT 'HAVE YOU HEARD?'

Spurtle readers responded with great enthusiasm last week to a rash of ‘public diary entries’ or ‘messages from an unknown confidante’ adhering to bus stops, walls, junction boxes and lampposts across Broughton (Breaking news, 30.7.14).

Eventually, we tracked down the originators and were able to explain that the postings form part of Have you heard? – an innovative artistic project with international origins in Finland and Italy, and international interests in the experiences of immigrant communities.

Below, four of the artists responsible ­– Daria Akimenko (interior and landscape designer, PhD student), Malla Alatalo (cultutral manager, producer), Janna Airaksinen (sound designer, composer) and Nuno Escudeiro (filmmaker) – give us their account of the project’s conception, progress, reception and possible future returns.

It worked!

Through Spurtle's coverage, we are very happy to know that our project is ‘working’, that we are spreading a story in an urban context, since this was our main artistic objective. Most of our messages were destroyed immediately after being positioned. If they were all still in place, there would be around 80 messages across the city now.

Of course, this was part of our artistic concept, for the urban space processes an artistic impact in its own ways. And your newspaper and its community of readers passing the message is surely a very rewarding outcome.

We feel very satisfied with the results of our project. It went – as planned– through feelings of confusion and frustration towards something to be proud of. We have to tell you that Have you heard? is an experimental artistic method that we developed ourselves and have applied for the first time. We had, of course, very high goals and some of them have not been achieved, but these were only a small part of our initial idea.

However, experimenting with new concepts always leads to readjustments and changing of perspectives of what our concepts were initially about. Now, we have a much clearer idea of the potential future applications of Have you heard? We are eager to apply them in a new context in the not too distant future.

This is a process-based project, where all the inputs received during the research phase affect the outcomes. So the next Have you heard? will be completely different.

Impressions

Following the thousands of poems written about Edinburgh, we fell in love with it. It is the ideal city to create such a project in. As you know, the goal of our project was to collect immigrant stories here. We spent the first two weeks meeting people, collecting the narratives of their lives and immersing ourselves in intense research of our subject. 

Many of the stories we collected  can be found in the messages we later left across the city. A big part of the research work involved wandering through Edinburgh, attending events and meeting people for coffee. Being temporary residents in East London Street, Broughton Street was often our base of operations.

The people we met were our sources, and it is to them that we dedicate Have you heard? The things they lived and the love they have for Edinburgh and Leith fuelled our creative energy into the making of this project.

Reactions

We received all kinds of reactions. Some of the ‘immigrant's messages’ were ripped off the walls and bins, as if they had irritated someone. When approaching people for interviews, we were sometimes confronted with rejection. But more often, we had great responses. Some of our interviewees become our friends.

Putting messages in the streets, we could hear passers-by saying ‘Look! Another one’, or ‘Have you seen these? They’re everywhere’ in tones of excitement and curiosity. 

On the closing day, we presented the results to the people who had taken part in the project. That day was very special as the whole community we had worked with was very pleased with the result. 

And, of course, hearing from the Spurtle felt very special too.

Documentary and map

The documentary film is an independent result of our project. It started as video research on our theme, and ended up turning into a 40-minute film by the name of Silk Road.

In it, we take the viewer on a promenade along Leith Walk, going in and out of different commercial establishments managed by immigrants. These businesses effectively work as a combination of traditional shops and community centres. We invite the viewer to look behind the facades of these places, beyond their products and into their souls.

The four places that we invite you to visit are: Casa Amiga, Taste of Poland, Polypak Continental Foods and Taj Collections. 

We are finishing the project's digital map (hosted by Google maps application) and hope to have it complete in the next two weeks. Follow this link to see a a map of one small part of our urban intervention.

We invite everyone to follow the story and go hunting to see how many of the messages are still in the city space.

Future plans

We will still share these and other materials on our Facebook page. But we are also planning to bring the project back to Edinburgh as both an exhibition and documentary screening. Soon we will start looking for spaces and applying for funding to make this trip possible. We encourage everyone who is interested in the project, and would like to see more of it, to share some ideas about how to make this return possible (finding venues, funding etc.).

We are now back in our homes across Europe, but we keep Edinburgh in our hearts and minds and hope to come back soon.