Creating Stories – Uusix Locally 'MADE in Helsinki'

Me building the material forest.

Within the past months I have been rather busy with working at another project that is still closely linked to my thesis. 

It is focusing as most of my other approachs also, on creating stories and memory conected to products and the people. Memories captured in products are most often mentioned as the main reason why people value them higher. My goal is therefore to create stories, memory and meaningfulness within the products so they grow together with their owner, to be kept, cared for and valued for a longer period of time. Even though, if one day the owner decides to give them away, if he/she cares for them, they are less likely to just put them to the garbage, they rather try to find a new owner who will take care. This thought I got at least when talking with friends, and sellers at the flea-market. 
I had a nice encounter a few days ago at the big Valteri Flea-market at Vallila, I found a lovely dress saying 'Made in Finland', and the owner told my a sweet story to it, and that she had so many nice memories conected to it, so she wanted it to find a new owner who would take care of it as well. Now its mine, and I love it already :) I also stayed in contact with the former owner, which is a really nice aswell.

Uusix Room - A space to interact - dive into the material forest.

Also in the research feedback from the Make{able} workshop I often found the key point that creates the higher value, was the making by the owner, or at least finishing and fine-tuning - creating a personal stamp and fit. This will create a memory of making and working with it. 
Stamping things, leads me to my other bigger project with Uusix Verstaat, a social enterprise of the city Helsinki. I have been enjoying to work there and with Uusix since last autumn, creating textile prints for the WDC and 200 years of Helsinki and mainly organising and building their room in Helsinki Museum - Hakasalmi Villa.

Patchwork created from the left overs of the city prints.

Handmade by Uusix

Their products are mainly shaped by the people making them. Me as designer just had the role of providing them with a starting idea – the textile single prints. The products and patterns were mostly created by the people only with some feedback from my side. All the wonderful items are produced locally in their facilities in Kyläsaari, Helsinki. Uusix is part of Helsinki's rehabilitation unit, and is dedicated to people who have been longer-term unemployed. Its main goal is to help them finding back to working life. The products created at Uusix are mainly based on recycled materials, products that host a former life-story already, but have been a discarded or lost their original purpose. Within their various workshops, they find new ways to be reinvented and reinterpreted to become a new life or story. Uusix was now also represented in the recently opened 'Made in Helsinki 1700 -2012' exhibition at Hakasalmi. The past two or three months I was mainly involved in organising planning and building the exhibition room. Which I am after all very happy to see in real action. The room is also named after the whole concept of Uusix and tries to represent the organisation in the best possible way I could think of. The theme called 'New Stories' (Uusia Tarinoita) is very much conform with my thesis idea, therefore I will try to also include it within my writing and thesis studies. The whole room is based on the white space of an unwritten story, filled with materials, to touch and interact, and shaped by the people of Uusix, that surround the room with a 13 meter photography panorama. There are also going to be workshops once a month, always the first Wednesday of each month, starting with the Taideyö (Night of the arts) in August 2012. Currently there are pillows, filled with recycled materials to test, feel and move around as well as a stamping station to create your own postcards with my Helsinki illustrations on mould-made paper. Enjoy and Make! Address and more info straight from the Museums site: Hakasalmi Villa

Stamp your own postcards.