What is your cultural environment? | Mikä on sinun kulttuuriympäristösi?
Osana hanketta Helena Aleksandrova ja Fiona Musanga ideoivat ja tuottivat videon, joka pohtii kulttuuriympäristöä ja sen monitulkintaisuutta. Teoksen voi katsoa yltä, ja alapuolella voit lukea Aleksandrovan ja Musangan ajatuksia videon suunnittelu- ja tuotantoprosessista.
What is your cultural environment?
written by Helena Aleksandrova & Fiona Musanga
When we started thinking about what is a cultural environment, we began with ourselves and what it means
to us. Where did we discover our cultural environment? We tracked back to childhood, it is when you start
to learn the world by seeing it: seeing colors, architecture, objects. That is why we decided to start a video
with a mother and daughter on a walk spotting red cars.
Being mobile people ourselves, traveling, discovering a new city and learning new languages is shaping our
cultural environment as well. That is why we have a character who is looking for directions and asks for
them in Finnish, which is not her native language.
Then we thought about what is a cultural environment for us and for many people right now? What shapes
the cultural environment beyond educational and cultural institutions? Social media is one tool that helps
many people and especially teenagers to connect with each other and share their experiences. That has
become an even greater medium to shape one’s cultural environment during the pandemic. We have a
young girl that is taking a selfie in the city landscape.
To us, the cultural environment consists of all the human activities, in the urban or natural landscape, that
enhance the experiences and help to learn about the world and ourselves in an empirical way. Working on
the video made us understand better, that the cultural environment is all around us in daily activities and is
accessible to anyone. We wanted to show that with the video as well, by bringing familiar themes from life.
We want to show how the cultural environment is very present in our everyday lives.
A city, a game, a language, a photo - They all shape our cultural environment.
The video was made as a part of the Kotokulmat material.