Carl Knif Com­pa­ny’s 10th year ce­leb­ra­tions be­gin with a bang: be­si­des six pre­mie­res, the Com­pa­ny will ce­leb­ra­te its past with a pho­to and cos­tu­me ex­hi­bi­tion, which will be seen in Dan­ce Hou­se Hel­sin­ki in May.

“When we first be­gan plan­ning the Com­pa­ny’s 10th an­ni­ver­sa­ry a few years ago, I sud­den­ly re­mem­be­red the dream I had had for a good whi­le. For se­ve­ral years I’ve dreamt about an ex­hi­bi­tion whe­re the Com­pa­ny’s pic­tu­res, both per­for­man­ce pho­tos and pro­mo­tio­nal ma­te­rial of va­rious kinds, could be disp­la­yed for a wi­der au­dien­ce. To­get­her with the Com­pa­ny’s de­sig­ners Ka­ro­lii­na Koi­so-Kant­ti­la, Juk­ka Hui­ti­la, and Jan­ne Hast, we ha­ve crea­ted our own vi­vid and ori­gi­nal vi­sual lan­gua­ge. This lan­gua­ge crys­tal­li­ses and gains new di­men­sions in the ima­ges of pho­tog­rap­her Yos­hi Omo­ri. An in­di­vi­dual per­for­man­ce li­ves on­ly for a short mo­ment, as long as the per­for­man­ce lasts. In that sen­se, per­for­man­ces lea­ve ep­he­me­ral tra­ces in our minds. Pho­tog­raphs, on the ot­her hand, are conc­re­te vi­sual tra­ces. With their help, we are ab­le to re­mind our­sel­ves of and re-ex­pe­rien­ce the per­for­man­ces we’ve seen, or we can en­coun­ter works that are en­ti­re­ly unk­nown to us. Yos­hi’s ima­ges ha­ve be­co­me an im­por­tant part of the Com­pa­ny’s com­mu­ni­ca­tion and vi­sual iden­ti­ty. In fact, the re­hear­sal pe­riod of­ten starts with the ta­king of pro­mo­tio­nal pho­tos. For me, it is a ga­te that leads me to the work’s world. Th­rough the pho­tos, I try to com­mu­ni­ca­te all the know­led­ge I ha­ve re­gar­ding the work to both my col­lea­gues and the au­dien­ce.

The ex­hi­bi­tion is a vi­sual cross-sec­tion of Carl Knif Com­pa­ny’s his­to­ry. Inc­lu­ded are both ima­ges from va­rious works and pho­tog­raphs ta­ken for pro­mo­tio­nal pur­po­ses. Mo­reo­ver, I want to shed light on our mu­tual jour­ney by sho­wing ne­ver be­fo­re seen ma­te­rial, such as pic­tu­res ta­ken for works that ha­ve ne­ver seen the light of day and pho­tog­raphs that, for so­me rea­son or ot­her, we­re ne­ver pub­lis­hed.

I want the ex­hi­bi­tion to be such that it can be ex­pe­rien­ced whet­her or not you’ve seen our per­for­man­ces. The pho­tog­raphs tell their own in­de­pen­dent his­to­ry, one in which all the fi­ne peop­le who ha­ve cont­ri­bu­ted to the Com­pa­ny the­se last ten years are pre­sent. Our vi­sual jour­ney con­ti­nues…”

– Carl Knif

Be­si­des the ex­hi­bi­tion and the pre­mie­res, the 10th an­ni­ver­sa­ry will inc­lu­de a pub­li­ca­tion ba­sed on in­ter­views as well as a Best of re­cor­ding with mu­sic com­po­sed by sound de­sig­ner Jan­ne Hast. The Com­pa­ny will al­so of­fer two free works­hops for both pro­fes­sio­nal and non-pro­fes­sio­nal peop­le on the arts field.

Carl Knif Company will perform during the week its new performance Sessions.

Read more: Sessions

Read more: Carl Knif Com­pa­ny