DIALOGUE Aspirational actions
Art challenges established truths in the care sector Professor Susanna Helke looks at health and social services through the lens of a filmmaker, Laura Arpiainen as an architect and professor. Both are concerned about the crisis in the care sector in Finland. Text Terhi Hautamäki Translation Tomi Snellman Photo Jaakko Kahilaniemi What does art have to do with health and social services? More than one might expect. Professor Susanna Helke makes documentary films, the latest of which uses cinematic art to highlight the crisis in care work. Professor Laura Arpiainen’s speciality is architecture that promotes health and wellbeing. Archtecture and the design of the built environment have inclusivity and usercenteredness at their very heart, and they aim for equitable design that considers all user groups. Although Helke and Arpiainen practice different artistic disciplines, they share a desire to change the health and social sector and improve general wellbeing. ‘We’re concerned that the Finnish Health and Social Services Reform has been predominantly planned from an administrative
LAURA ARPIAINEN is Professor of Practice for Health and Wellbeing Architecture at Aalto University. She is the director of the Sotera research group, which studies health and social services building, accessibility, ageing in society, and urban health and wellbeing.
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perspective. We’ve both thought a lot about what the system does to people,’ says Arpiainen. Arpiainen’s project for integrated diverse living solutions for people with memory decline, known in Finnish as MonIA, ended last autumn. The project consortium included government representatives, municipalities, private and public sector developers, and service providers. Helke’s film Ruthless Times – Songs of Care is a choral documentary about issues in care for the elderly. The film was part of a project called Images of Harmony and Rupture, which explored documentary film as a reflection of fractures in the welfare state. ‘The point was to show the total incompatibility between the logic of money and the production of intangible value,’ says Helke. An opportunity to ask difficult questions How can art and artistic research change society? ‘We can do it by telling the truth, asking tough questions and presenting strong opinions. That’s social activism, and that’s what we are doing here at the university – changing the world,’ says Arpiainen. Her argument is that as artistic disciplines, both architecture and cinema can deeply affect viewers because they communicate something that cannot be described in words or through other means. ‘We can make all the complaints we like about the problems of care for the elderly, but when Susanna creates a film about the subject, it speaks to you on a different level. It’s a powerful way to get the message across.’ Art and artistic research challenge prevailing ways of thinking. Arpiainen and Helke argue that the situation known as a sustainability deficit is, in fact, partly due to the fact that society has succeeded at something: extending people’s lifespans. But this creates a paradox when elderly people are seen exclusively as an economic burden. According to Helke, the power of documentary film lies in its capacity to make things visible. Instead of presenting an action plan, cinema offers knowledge in an emotional, embodied and experiential form.