Nominee BA Research Award
Meet Jasmin Kuusinen! Jasmin was nominated for the 2021 BA Research Award with her graduation project ‘Kekri: Ceremony of Parting’. In this interview, Jasmin tells us about her work and future plans.
Can you tell us a bit about your graduation project and how it came about?
Kekri is a two-hour ceremony dedicated to craftsmanship. It is a reaction to the culture of mass production and mass consumption. The ceremony starts with making the tools used during the ceremony. The cups, the carpet the ceremony takes place on, as well as the meals, are all made by hand following traditional techniques. This is very time-consuming, and my mother and grandmother helped me with this. The ceremony revolves around a meal consisting of four courses and a drink that will be made in front of the guests. The entire meal is consumed in silence. After the meal, I start a conversation about the food we ate and the history behind it. I ask the guests I invited to bring a recipe that has a certain value for them personally. This enables them to give their own meaning to the way we consume and realise this has value other than money.
In this project, I combine craftsmanship with my Finnish heritage in order to create objects with a newfound value. I strongly value the history and traditions behind crafting techniques and materials and hope that this knowledge will pass on. In my research, I looked into the history of crafts such as ceramics and woodworking, specifically from the region in Finland where my roots are. Based on this research, I designed the shapes and objects I use in my ceremony.
Which themes or societal concerns are you addressing in your work, and how?
As I mentioned before, the focus of the project is on mass consumption and mass production. My aim with the project is to create new value, meaning and connections with the product you consume and the materials it is made of. I believe that mass production changed our relationship with the items we own. It has shifted our mindset so that we see objects as valueless: if they break we simply replace them. Creating tools and objects by myself, created a newfound value in them. They are not perfect, because they are not machine-made, which makes them unique. I see the ceremony as a craft and the host as a craftsman. That is why I prepare the tools and dishes in front of my guests. The cups they drink from have strange shapes and can not be put on the table because they will fall over. All of this requires another level of consciousness and interaction between me, my guests and the tools. Besides that, the exchange of recipes at the end of the ceremony invites guests to rethink their relationship to food and the memories connected to it. By creating this experience, I hope to break the cycle of mass consumption and create appreciation for material and crafts.
What will you be working on in the near future? What are your next steps?
I hope to keep hosting the ceremonies after graduation as well. I would like to create a cookbook using the recipes brought by the guests of the ceremonies. These recipes are not necessarily tasty, but they are connected to a memory. I think that is really interesting. In the future, I want to continue collaborating with family members, other artists and crafts(wo)men more often. It would be very interesting to work with people from other disciplines that can help me with the things I am not good at myself. In any case, I would like to continue designing things around themes such as sustainability and crafts.
To read more about Jasmin’s work, pay a visit to her Graduation Catalogue Page. Furthermore, her journey can be followed on Instagram. The winners of the BA Research Award will be announced during a festive ceremony as part of the Graduation Show. Keep an eye on our Graduation Show page for more information.
