The Zarya Center for Contemporary Art and the International Helsinki Art Residence (HIAP) announce the start of cooperation within the HIAP Connecting Points program and the exchange of residents in 2019.

Connecting Points is a program that aims at strengthening the collegial and curatorial activity in artistic and cultural realm in/within Finland and Russia. The program explores the interrelations and specific aspects of different sites and locations as well as understandings between them. A location can provide a source for action and commitment but also provide a setting from which to reach – intense and temporal – as well as profound and enduring connections. The program is currently coordinated and curated by artist-curators Miina Hujala and Arttu Merimaa who run a display window space called Alkovi in Helsinki.

HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme is an international artist residency organisation which was established in 1998. The HIAP residency programme offers time and space for developing new work in dialogue with the local art scene. The goal is to support experimental, cross-disciplinary art practices and to actively contribute to topical debates within and around the context of art.