"Paradigm Shift" Participants

ABSTRACT
The remembered history of experimental film practice in Finland was relatively short and narrow, when a group of artists who called themselves Helsingin elokuvapaja (Helsinki Film Workshop) was established in the end of the 1980s. It was a collaborative project, that brought together many filmmakers and artists of different fields and encouraged cross-disciplined praxis. It was not just about producing artworks but the members organised also workshops, screenings, discussions and courses in art schools. They also bought and brought together a private collection of prints of well-chosen international classics of avantgarde-films and did several curated programs of the members works. It is at first the idea of having a collection of artists work and then realising it, which I´m paying attention in this paper. In 2012 moving image artists cooperative FixC announced their project VILKE, a collection of interesting and some times neglected works of Finnish electric avant-garde. Being an artist-member of FixC and a scholar in history of media arts, I trace in my paper the reasons for what do these artist-based archive have in common and what are the differences when launching these projects. I also ask what are the special reasons why independent artists collections can be beneficial to the richness of audiovisual culture.