Johanna Latvala and Timo Harju talked about Johanna’s one-to-one artwork which is based on the one person audience sharing a part of their life story with her. What are the ethics of such one-to-one art encounters in a therapy driven society?
Johanna Latvala is a visual artist and a puppeteer whose work also includes the one-to-one pieces “Please be her to me for a while”, “Potions for the incurable” and “Kehto-experimance”.
Timo Harju is a poet, a communal artist and the founder and artistic director of the One-to-One Art festival Kehä. The conversation between them was recorded on the 8. 11. 2016. It was moderately shortened and translated into English by Timo
JOHANNA: “Please be her to me for a while” is a work born out of my own wish to return to unfinished moments in my life. I decided that I want to offer people a space, in the form of a one-to-one artwork, where they could return to their own moments. I reach out to persons who are interested in such an invitation. In the piece I ask the person who came, if there is something in his or her or their life, a moment, a theme, that they feel is unfinished. And that is also something they would like to return to here and now. I ask them to tell me about it in their own way. And then together we explore that story through puppetry. There is a table between us, and there are objects on it, maybe thirty objects between us. I ask her to look at the objects and think about which one of them might relate to the story. I listen to see what things might emerge from there as characters. Often I ask her to choose a pair of objects that could represent a conflict in the story. Sometimes they are people. Sometimes they can be different sides of the same person, inner voices, themes. Some people find them hard to find. Some people find it right away. Either I ask them to tell more about the story with help from the object, or I make settings, scenes, landscapes… I might ask the person to attach the object to their body. Where would it be if it had grown right into you? I might ask them to animate objects. Or to interview them. Some use objects very much like puppets and some use them more as symbols. I try to listen to a person’s natural way of relating to objects. Those ways have been wonderfully diverse. Is there more to say about it? I listen. I am present. I see what is happening.
TIMO: What objects do you have?
JOHANNA: I have a matryoshka doll. Then I have a grinding mill for cheese, that is one of the most popular ones. Then I have a rusty fork I found from a burnt house. I have a padlock a person I encountered taught me to pick open. Then there are two different bird boxes which can be opened. There’s a rack. Help me, what things I have, chopsticks, matches, nail scissors, so I also have objects that can be used to hurt me, I have coffee cups, different kinds of dishes. I have ordinary objects. Many of them are broken or battered somehow. That’s my method: Familiar objects with a piece missing. It feeds your imagination that they are not brand new.
TIMO: I would think straight that it is more likely that someone hurts you on the street than in this artwork with nail scissors.
JOHANNA: Still that fear has arisen sometimes, just because you are with a stranger. If he’s afraid of me, then I’m afraid of him. I want to make the choice to trust.
TIMO: Does this work help you to trust? Does it, for example, set such boundaries for the moment that there’s a shelter for an encounter, somehow different from everyday life and somehow meaningful and somehow… Art? How is the moment laid down in your work?
JOHANNA: I’ve been searching for a way to frame the piece by talking. And I ended up saying to my visitors something like this that I’ve dedicated this work to the unfinished things in people’s lives. That we can talk about them here. It has been really important to me to bring up the theme right away, and say that it’s a theme that runs through the lives of many people. And that it’s allowed to be present in any way, even if we don’t talk about it. I also say that I’m here at this moment as an artist and as another human being, who is listening to you. I also always say that I will ask some questions and propose some ways to handle your story. But that you don’t have to answer anything if you don’t want to. It’s your story and you can deal with it, wordlessly also. So explore what you want to talk about.
TIMO: How does it feel to welcome people? Do you have a way of preparing yourself for that, somehow?
JOHANNA: The essential preparation that will give me the boundaries there and then is that I’m ready to take on anything, to accept everything. I’m not like that in my ordinary life.
TIMO: And your physical boundaries are also clear in the piece, am I right?
JOHANNA: There’s a table between us all the time and there are objects on the table. It’s not just me and the person.
TIMO: To me, that sounds like an element which gives structure and protection to the situation.
JOHANNA: It is also an important limitation that we have one hour time, at maximum.
TIMO: Is this a safe work for you? Or is it heavy, tough? What’s it like?
JOHANNA: What’s safe about it is that I’ve made a clear choice that the other can tell me whatever they want about their own story. I won’t interfere with it. And I won’t walk away from it. It makes me feel safe.
TIMO: And once you’ve told the other that this is your choice, it is also clear to her. She doesn’t have to think all the time about what she can say. Like in normal communication you have to think about this a lot. I guess we all have those moments when you wanted to say something, and you tried to say, but then it was just all too much, and the other directly, or kind of sneakily, blocks what is coming from there. And then things are left unfinished.
JOHANNA I have no intention of weaving myself into the story of the person in any way. At least occasionally I’ve quite nicely found that kind of an attitude which makes those stories more neutral, because the story doesn’t have to be anything I would understand or accept. Very often social communication is about creating a connection. But in this work it doesn’t have to be about creating a connection with me. It’s liberating that you don’t have to form any human relationships at the same time.
TIMO: In many cases a work of art is a mirror. Are you here just a part of the work that a person can use as a mirror?
JOHANNA: With many visitors, I’ve had a conversation about me not being a therapist but an artist. That is a really intriguing boundary for me. Precisely because I pose that kind of a question that please tell me an unfinished thing from your life. I find it shocking that I’m interpreted as a therapist just on the basis of that question
TIMO: Have you been interpreted like that?
JOHANNA: Many have said to me that your work sounds like therapy.
TIMO: Has someone said that in your piece, in those moments? Or does it come from the outside?
JOHANNA: Yes, they have. For example one of my visitors asked me afterwards if I’m a therapist. Even though I had told them quite clearly, according to my own mind, that I’m an artist. In this world, conversations like the ones happening in my artwork are seen very much as a therapy, in such a context.
TIMO: If there are some difficult issues.
JOHANNA: If that is what they happen to be.
TIMO: Or some deeply personal issues with a stranger, then that stranger should actually be a therapist. What do you think? How would this work be different if it was not art but art therapy?
JOHANNA: I do not know. I have read a lot of literature on psychodrama to support this. In psychodrama, there are many elements that are also present in puppet theatre. You deal with issues through objects. It is so easy to reflect quite deep stuff there. But certainly if I were a therapist, if the work was art therapy, I would think about the therapist’s responsibility. If it was therapy it would somehow be a more recognizable thing in this world.
TIMO: For example, you could say what type of therapy is in question. And if the person wanted to, they could read about the background of that form of therapy and learn more about it and so on.
JOHANNA: Yeah, it would probably be more clear what the methods are. With me it’s just somehow the sharing of the story. In a way, just being with the story is my base. And what is my responsibility in a situation like that? I would like to ask the question, can that responsibility be taken away from the person, ever, under any circumstances? Like in a way: can a person bear their own story?
TIMO Is it your responsibility if a person can’t stand their own story?
JOHANNA: Do I go too far by asking that question? It is interesting to me that this thought even comes up. Another big difference between my artwork and therapy lies in continuity. Therapists meet their clients many, many times. For sure they have their own professionality which gives a certain predictability to how things are approached. I go in terms of the person’s story, from the perspective of an artwork. I try to look as much as I can from the point of view of the story and theatre. And I try to use that vocabulary too. I have been in therapy a lot myself, and I know quite a bit of therapeutic vocabulary from there and strive not to use it.
TIMO: It befuddles me that when art is treating people, then the words ”art is therapeutic” are often used. It’s funny to me that the ability to treat is reserved for therapy. Just as well you could think that as long as there has been art, the purpose of art has been to care and heal. It’s kind of strange that we reserve treating only for things that come from the fields of medicine, psychiatry and psychology. I’ve ended up saying that talking about the therapeutic aspects of art confines art as b-grade therapy. And then you lose what art can be.
JOHANNA: When a therapist and a client meet it is perhaps clearer for both what are the expectations for their role. It is a terribly rare situation when an unknown person asks you to really tell. And I also have no way of knowing from the person who comes to me what they expect from me as an artist.
TIMO: Our conversation right away led to this discussion about insecurity. What if we talk about what was safe or successful or wonderful in your work?
JOHANNA: I’m constantly thinking about what I can say, so that I wont tell too much.
TIMO: Yes, confidentiality is an important part of your work.
JOHANNA: One thing I can say is that all the people, who came, were somehow the right people. The wonderful thing has been, that when I ask, “What would you like to explore?” and the person says, “I have no idea”, and then I ask a few questions, and then after a while the person says, “I didn’t know at all I had this thing in me.” For me this creates faith. I myself have a feeling sometimes that I’ve drifted lost, that I don’t know at all what is meaningful to me anymore. And then comes a fleeting moment with another person, and suddenly it’s all clear, suddenly I see, what is the thread going through everything. It is lovely when the bound energy becomes visible. So that’s what it’s been like in this work. I’ve found with people that now, now, we’ve hit a question that has just been waiting to be hit. I feel it in me. When I get this somatic energy, a tension, a reflection of the other in my body, then I know. I don’t have to know what the question is. The moment is real. Things have been found, things that the person didn’t know they was looking for. I think this is maybe the point of art. The content comes from the person, not from the artwork I’ve prepared. That I can say. What else? O it’s a shame, that they are so intimate, those biggest things, that I can’t tell them. We’ve cried together. That is also terribly special with an unknown person.
TIMO: I think it’s important that there are things you don’t have to tell. They can be kept between the people they belong to. So what if we just go back to the moment? What’s it like to start this piece with a person? Do some need more assistance than others?
JOHANNA: That was actually a surprise to me in Oulu. I was surprised that the people needed so little assistance.
TIMO: Have you performed this anywhere else, besides the Kehä-festival, where you worked one day at an A guild, which is a place offering substance abuse rehabilitation, and one day in a in an old cellar, which used to be a cellar of a castle, but the castle has been gone for more than a hundred years and the cellar is a part of a park.
JOHANNA: I’ve only rehearsed with my own friends, nothing else. But soon I’ll have more performances coming at Tehdas theatre in Turku. I know that when I’ve met tens and tens of people with this work, then I’ll have more familiar ground to know what kinds of things can happen. So far I’ve had only eight, plus a little less than ten people I tested this with.
TIMO: Has it been different with friends compared to encounters at the festival?
JOHANNA: Yes, it has been different. It’s different when the contact is limited only for that moment. But how has it been different? With familiar people you end up with questions, like, what are the other expectations related to the moment.
TIMO: What are the moments like, when the piece ends? How do you say bye bye to people in this work?
JOHANNA: I had an alarm clock ringing after 45 minutes so that we can close the moment and I have a while before the next one. It was surprising that almost everyone’s story lasted the forty five minutes very naturally.
TIMO: Did you have to search for the right duration when you were preparing the work, or did you immediately have the idea of one hour.
JOHANNA: First I thought about spending a whole day with one person. But then I decided to limit myself to one hour, for some reason. In the end I say: “Would you like to ask this piece something? Or would you like to say something to it? Or if you want to say something to me, it’s welcome.” Although I know that many people will digest the experience for some time. If the story is somehow unfinished, we might think of an ending for it. Sometimes I ask how you would like to name your story. I think that’s about it. I try to find an artistic way to close the subject.
TIMO: Naming is a powerful gesture, and a kind of exciting.
JOHANNA: We’ve had surprising names. And here again, the same thing is touching me: That they know. This is called this! Often my tears come with the name. Somehow it’s so, like, it’s so, just the fact that a person recognizes the titles of their own life is really beautiful to me. Then I say that our moment is over now. I always say thank you. With many people we hug. With some it has happened that if the line wasn’t so clear, it would be really hard to stop. I did notice that.
TIMO: How does it feel like, that you’ve had a moment, and there she goes, that human being?.
JOHANNA: Well, it feels really tough. It feels really, really tough. When I go back to those things we had I never get to know how the story continued, how the person felt after a moment. I don’t have a clue. There was a clearance, a moment opened up, and another person told me things. How does he feel the next day? Does he feel, after the shared situation has disappeared, that he regrets?
TIMO: That he said too much?
JOHANNA: Yes. And I know it because I have many times said too much myself, in therapy for example. The magical concept of re-traumatization often comes up. Can it, like, re-traumatize you, when you just tell your story? Well. Yes. I don’t know. For me it’s a choice the person makes. I don’t ask them to say anything they doesn’t want to.
TIMO: I reckon that’s a gesture of trust. Ok, it’s possible that you trust someone, and the trust is too much for him, and he hurts himself because of it. I know it’s possible. But it’s definitely not more likely than trust doing good for him. Why shouldn’t we act so that good things can come? Why do we always act so that nothing bad can happen?
JOHANNA: You ask a person one question, and tell them that I’m here and listen. How heavy fears you can access just by doing that… It makes you notice how patterned your own social being is. That’s one part of this piece. I’ve wanted to explore the human encounter which is a very fundamental element in theatre. I’ve experienced the boundary between myself and the other person in such a way that I listen, I don’t try to change their life in any way. I’m here, only this. It’s like… Really. Difficult. How interesting this question is, that there’s such a massive fear inside me, I’m afraid people will hurt if they talk about their own stuff. That’s totally absurd. How absurd that I’m so afraid of communication in general. Even though that’s what you want to do with art, you want something unpredictable to happen. You wish for space for some things to happen that don’t have a chance to happen in ordinary life. But when you get there, then it’s so scary.
TIMO: It’s good that there are fears. I mean, it means that we care about each other. I think that’s really good. But I would like to spread the word that you don’t have to watch out for other human beings.
JOHANNA: I have to say that no one has given any mean criticism about this piece. So far the fear has been only inside my own head. Many have been worried about how I’m coping with all this. But I haven’t heard anyone being worried about how those people I met are coping. No one besides me.
TIMO: It did cross my mind that, well, how about those people after the piece. Because I’m, like, trying to think about the artist’s responsibility. Am I hurting someone? I think I’m not very good at noticing it. That’s of course why I keep insisting there’s no reason to be afraid… O help me… What more? What kind of an environment was one-to-one festival Kehä for the piece? Did it affect what it was like to make it?
JOHANNA: It made it a lot easier. First of all, it was lovely that there were so many artists moving along the same axis of art and encounter that I’m moving along with this piece. Then it was wonderful that we could debrief the encounters. It feels like people have very similar questions. In Kehä I got shared words for remembering, what is the essence of art to me. I can be present when the stories are born. I don’t have to keep on repeating a polished story.
TIMO: You worked one day in an A-guild with rehab people and one day in the old cellar with anyone who showed up. Was it different to do the piece in these places?
JOHANNA: It was somewhat different. I was clearly more nervous about going to the A-guild beforehand. I felt that at the open festival people come to us. They have already made the choice to come to this and this piece. But us going to the A-guild as if to them, it felt like a bigger gesture. But actually there were people at the A-guild who were used to sharing their own life story. They were at a stage where they were already dealing with their life a lot. Talking with them was much easier than what I expected.
TIMO: We are talking about people who have sought support from the A-guild to get their lives back together, no to have those substance abuse problems. And the responsibility of the care worker perhaps arises from that. An artist does not have that responsibility, at least not the very same one. But if the artist is involved in a treatment situation, or at least in a space of care, and coming from the sidelines, it’s probably better to be very precise to avoid misunderstandings.
JOHANNA: It has been important to me to open up where I’m coming from to this encounter and why I’ve made this work. In the future I plan to explain it even more. I’m not offering some ready-made service. But I just, like, openly say that hi, I’m this kind of person and I’m an artist and here we go. It has become clear that the challenge of defining this work is that people’s expectations regarding the role of an artist and their own role are really different depending on their backgrounds. In order to somehow calibrate those expectations, I have to make my own role really clear.
TIMO: In my view, art has an offer in the places of care, because when you make art together, you don’t have to be a nurse or a rehab patient or whatever patient all the time. It’s clear to me that it would do good for care relationships and people to get out of those locked-in roles, even though they do have a purpose and we need to return to them. But I mean, it’s obvious that our society would be a lot better off if arts were funded from social and health care funds with radically large amounts of money.
JOHANNA: ”Please be her to me for a while” is a work where the two of us meet in once in a lifetime roles. Who we are to each other might be something unique. The artwork is based on that we don’t necessarily have to be anyone, we can probe who we are. The piece is also free of charge. If you had to pay afterwards, if you had to revert to some roles of buyer and seller, it would feel too drastic. It seems like a violent thought. But it wouldn’t necessarily ruin the moment, though.
translated from Finnish by Timo Harju
1 The original name of the work in Finnish, Ole mulle vähän aikaa hän, is a quote from a song Syksyn sävel by Juice Leskinen. There are no separate masculine and feminine pronouns in Finnish so the pronoun “hän” can refer to “she”, “he” & non-binary “they” at the same time. In the translation of the main text I have alternated between she, he & they. It seems appropriate not to use only “they” since we are talking about different individual people Johanna had met, who most likely were sometimes he or she.