Laura Jantunen:
The Idiot Gardener and Rock
2-4.6 2023

Performance times:
Friday 2: 17:00 and 19:00 
Saturday 3: 15:00 and 17:00
Sunday 4: 15:00 

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The Idiot Gardener and Rock looks into rocks as one of the building blocks of a garden. Rocks are often used as dividers of gardens. They tell what the gardener wants to grow here and what can grow on the other side there. It is not a coincidence that a performance that studies the meaning of rocks is performed in Kallio (Rock).
The Idiot Gardener is a fool character created by Laura Jantunen, who deals with environmental change through gardens. In The Idiot Gardener series the garden is seen as a vast concept. It can be for example a Japanese stone garden, little strip of land between apartment buildings, a commercial forest or just a regular garden with carrots and apple trees. The aim of the series is to question the need for gardening as well as find the essence of it. Why do we garden in the first place and what does it give to the gardener?
In The Idiot Gardener the “gardener” stands for trying one’s best and the will and hope towards the miracle of growth. The “Idiot” reflects everything where you fail, you could try better, or what you don’t understand at all. The fool character enables movement between these two, the acceptance, laughing at oneself and others.

Laura Jantunen is a choreographer and multidisciplinary artist based in Vantaa, Finland. She has worked as a choreographer, dancer, video maker, and textile artist since finishing her vocational qualification in dance in 2011 from Outokumpu dance education. She finished her Master’s degree in choreography at the University of Arts Helsinki in June 2023. Jantunen works through her own artistic practice titled Somagics. The name comes from the words ‘somatics’ and ‘magic’ and it describes a practice that creates movement through somatic practices while leaving space for the magical unknown. Jantunen’s work has been shown mostly in Finland, for example, at Zodiak – the Center for New Dance (Helsinki), Titanik Gallery (Turku) and Kutomo Art Space (Turku). From 2012 to 2017 she toured yearly with Italian pop group Pop_X in various venues around Italy. She frequently performs her works outside of the usual black box settings, which has prompted her to stage performances in places such as an office and a forest. www.lauranen.com

Picture: Nina Wilenius