Through subtle public interventions, Finnish artist Pilvi Takala excavates and illuminates the invisible social structures that frame our lives. She is interested in investigating the unspoken rules that justify social behavior and man’s ability to negotiate when such rules are broken. Though completely harmless, her unannounced performances and public gestures powerfully interrupt our perception of normality. First hit with a mildly disorienting spell of self consciousness, Takala’s audience is awakened to consider a question at the heart of her work: what is acceptable behavior, abnormal behavior, inappropriate behavior? And who says so?
Whether she is carrying her money in a transparent shopping bag in Berlin (Bag Lady, 2008), asking a stranger on the tram to borrow his jacket for a meeting (Easy Rider, 2006), or dressing up as Snow White for a visit to Disneyland, Paris (Real Snow White, 2009), Takala’s almost unnoticeable gestures offer a controversial view of the fragility of our social order. Documented with hidden cameras, the reactions and actions of her public captured on video reveal not only anger, discomfort, embarrassment and insecurity, but also compassion and kindness towards strangers.
Pilvi Takala makes clear our need for such gentle wake-up calls – ‘to actually see something that is part of here and now, but ignored.’ Her interventions, Takala believes, are minor shifts with possibly permanent effects, and she hopes that an awareness of these structures, and of the strangers and spaces that surround us, will help us reconsider how we treat each other and our lives.
An interview with Takala revealed eight unspoken rules that frame the artist behind the experiments.
I’m fascinated by how violent minor changes to our routines can feel, but especially I’m inspired by our ability to accept a change and renegotiate our rules.
#1. Less is more
What inspired you to play with public awareness?
I’m fascinated by how violent minor changes to our routines can feel, but especially I’m inspired by our ability to accept a change and renegotiate our rules. We feel like there’s a general consensus about how we are supposed to behave, but actually there are a lot of gray areas that we just intuitively avoid. When forced into those gray areas, we are able to invent new ways of behaving and start negotiating different possibilities – maybe even rethink other existing rules.
Is your work purely about raising awareness of these invisible structures, or have you ever been interested in actually effecting behavior?
I believe I can affect behavior through affecting how people think. The change is very small, probably unnoticeable, but nevertheless I believe my work has a permanent effect for those who really engage with it. The experience of our social rules falling apart for a moment does create something new in our minds, a permanent even if minor shift.
#2. Actions speak louder than words.
When did you first discover your ability to provoke – to cause effect?
Provoking reactions in people is pretty easy, but to be able to do something extremely subtle and powerless that appears provoking was something that I found a way to do in my work in the last decade.
How were rules interpreted in your early life? Have you always been a rebel?
I’ve always been fascinated with school, summer-camps and other group environments as a social study. It wasn’t always easy or pleasant to be in those environments, but I’d always rather be part of them than avoid them, even if I ended up low in the hierarchy. Otherwise, I grew up trusting and agreeing to most of the laws governing my country and I felt I had a fair chance to be part of public discussion. Obviously the existing rules and laws were not perfect, but a reasonable base for negotiation, so I was never really up for destroying the rule system I lived in. I was determined to be part of changing it for the better and was more involved with political activism before starting to make art.
#3. Always be prepared.
In a number of your works, such as Bag Lady and Real Snow White, you have taken on the role of the intervener. How do you prepare when the public’s reactions are so unpredictable?
The unpredictability is the whole point of doing these kinds of interventions. If I feel like I know the outcome of a certain action, I don’t go for it. I do prepare characters to perform and have some guidelines to follow when improvising. For example in Bag Lady I was just a foreign non-German-speaking person who hangs around at the mall and behaves like a perfect customer in every way, except for the style of carrying her money. I treated the transparent plastic bag full of cash just like my handbag in a very safe environment and was ignorant to the fact that showing my money might be dangerous or provoking.
#4. Hide all reason to doubt.
What is the importance of the cameras being hidden?
If something weird taking place is being filmed, we think it’s fiction and don’t need to react to it as a real event. My interventions are so subtle and already often something that people would rather ignore than accept as real, so the presence of a camera would excuse everyone from reacting.
Does this also apply to you as the artist as well? Do the people you engage with ever get to know you are an artist- that it was only an experiment?
I don’t mind if my audience learns that what they experienced was art, but often they don’t as I wouldn’t even know how to find them again. Also my interventions are quite realistic. What happens on the tram in Easy Rider could happen in reality, and I’m certainly not the first person trying to enter Disneyland dressed as a character.
I guess the misfits are more normal in my eyes than people who conform strongly – the absence of misfits always feels suspicious.
#5. Treat others as you would like to be treated.
It seems many react to the ‘unknown’ with unease, but there is still a sense of compassion for strangers, a desire to help and trust. How do you feel about the misfits in society? People like that strange guy on the bus, or the woman praying on the sidewalk, whose behaviors fall outside of the social norm?
I relate to misfits a lot, as I use that position in my work, so I have a lot of respect for them. I also enjoy seeing people breaking the social norm. My work is also about how people take care of each other and try to relate to strangers. However, in my normal life I try to fit in as much as possible, that is just more comfortable, although I also have a great tolerance developed with my practice for being excluded and frowned upon.
Although your public would sometimes rather ignore you than believe it’s real, tell me about the small fraction of people who try to take care of you and help you – who are they?
I think those people see the powerlessness of the action rather than feel threatened. Like the old lady that appears in Bag Lady who handed me another non-transparent plastic bag in the mall. She tried to speak to me in German and when I didn’t understand she just handed me this other plastic bag.
Are there other strangers you’ve had a strong experience with or felt particularly moved by?
I must say that what I’m mostly amazed by is how large masses of people sometimes behave. Occasional misfits amuse me and I sympathize with them, but they often don’t influence me as much as discoveries of strange crowd behavior. I guess the misfits are more normal in my eyes than people who conform strongly – the absence of misfits always feels suspicious.
#6. Freedom is just another word.
Even in public spaces there are underlying social codes and behavioral rules. Are we then not ‘free’ in public spaces? Is there anywhere we are free in that sense?
I don’t think we are ever free of social pressure unless we avoid all other people and live alone in the forest. We need to always negotiate with others, but some spaces and societies allow this negotiation to happen more freely than others. For me public space should be one of the spaces that allows negotiation and where everyone can suggest change.
Rules or no rules – how would you like to live your life? What makes you feel most free?
I feel extremely free. I feel like I am able to take part in the negotiation of rules, which is the definition of freedom for me. I also get to work on whatever I’m interested in and my passport allows me to travel easily almost anywhere. I feel lucky to be in this position.
#7. Luck is half of it.
Speaking of luck, are you interested in luck, chance or fate? Elements that guide our lives that are out of our control?
I’m interested in our perception of luck and fate. I’m fascinated by how even the most rational of us don’t seem to get the concepts of randomness and probability in their mathematical sense, but seem to believe in luck even if not admitting this. Some of us are of course openly superstitious and from a religious point of view randomness doesn’t really exist. I’m fascinated by the hope in us that makes us play the lottery, even though we know we have nearly zero chance of winning. I like how the most important thing about lottery is that the winning number is chosen in a truly random way, but the reason we play lottery is because we don’t actually believe in randomness. I feel like making my work is a lot about luck as well – it’s about seeing what happens when you try things.
Text: Amy Ontiveros.
