Culture in the City: Pecha Kucha & Kiasma

September is looking like an interesting month. In addition to it seeming as if we're coming out of a scorching summer and plummeting towards winter faster than you can say 'global warming', it seems as if we're falling (if not quite as fast) towards sobriety. Or i am.

And i'm not alone, either. A group of us decided that after a summer of perpetual inebriation, it was time for some enforced alcohol-free quality time.

So not being drunk or shivering on the floor of the bathroom feeling the after-effects thereof, leaves time for doing a whole lot of other things things. Like getting cultured. Which is why on Thursday night i found myself at Kaapelitehdas for Pecha Kucha Night. Organized as part of Helsinki Design Week, the night saw 12 speakers from around the world giving design-focused presentations. The idea of Pecha Kucha (for those yet unacquainted with it) is that each speaker puts together a presentation of 20 slides and has 20 seconds to talk about each slide. This amounts to six minutes, forty seconds and a succinct, dynamic presentation.

Topics ranged from education to architecture, with a curious addition of a presentation focusing on architects' haircuts (probably my personal favorite). I hadn't been to a Pecha Kucha Night before, but i came out of there thinking that was 7.50 e well spent (all this stimulating knowledge for the price of a very expensive pint!), and i'd definitely go again.

A sober weekend is a curious thing. This hardly means i've never experienced one (i have. probably not recently, but it's been done), but perhaps i'm paying more attention to the difference now that abstinence has become this month's norm. In any case, this sober Sunday started off with brunch at Primula (who have upped the price of brunch from 10 to 13 euros!) and was followed by a visit to Kiasma, which has been free of charge to go to all week as part of the 20th birthday celebrations of Valtion taidemuseo.

This museum visit's highlights included these bubbles, entitled ILMA, by artist Hilda Kozari, in which she has captured the signature scents of Helsinki, Paris and Budapest. I like the idea, and there's something surreal about standing in a bubble that attempts to trap the scent of an entire city into a little, opaque, echoey orb. I can see how Paris smelled like Paris (heavy on the perfumed, refined scent), while Kristine, Anna and I all agreed that Helsinki smelled of man. Does Helsinki smell like a man? I don't think so. Unless the characteristic smell of the city is a club filled with peach-fuzz mustache-sporting barely-legals who think that when it comes to aftershave, more is more.

Ei, by Pekka Syrjälä. This reminded me of thoothpaste.

The biggest highlight, though, was Jacob Dahlgren's The Wonderful World of Abstraction. This jungle of ribbons suspended from the ceiling was the best thing about the exhibit. You walk into it, and the flowing wall of color envelopes you and screws up your depth perception, so it's as if you're walking through a dreamlike, trippy, vertical rainbow.

i was also feeling these mismatched, stitched-up frankenstein toys. Endearing.

There's also a wall to which you can stick your own personal message on a post-it. A lot of them are from international museum visitors. Like this one, from Barney Stinson. Culture and sobriety are awesome.