It's really, really cold here right now. Here being Tallinn, Estonia, where as I write it's currently -22 C (-7.6 F) and it "feels like" -33 C (-27.4 F) with the wind chill. I'm sitting here in Slothrop's trying to stay alive, for the feeble electric heating can't keep up with the brutality of an Estonian winter. Thank you, medieval architecture!

But that's okay, because February is going to be a crazy busy month with activities going on all around the Baltic sea - in Tallinn, Helsinki, and Stockholm.

Supermarket 2012

17-19 Feb - Stockholm! Both sides of Ptarmigan are attending Supermarket Art Fair 2012 in Stockholm. We are supported in part by the Kulturkontakt Nord mobility programme. At Supermarket, we will be running various "mini-events" throughout the weekend, all from our booth on the 5th floor of the Swedish Kulturhuset. These events haven't been completely mapped out yet, but they will include performances by friends of ours in Sweden (former Ptarmigan resident Ola Ståhl, and Julia Bondesson who also performed at our Invisible Prom event last April) and our own projects.  I'm going to try out a small demonstrative "workshop" on how to make your own hot sauce, and Sari will perform as well. I'm also hoping to have some public discussions about the issues that affect artist-run spaces, like a small roundtable chat. [Ptarmigan profile on Supermarket site]

Workshops and other participatory events

• Sunday 5 Feb - Svamp Tallinn.  Even though it's Super Bowl Sunday, come by Ptarmigan Tallinn at 14:30 and bring something to make sound with. We'll hopefully get a Helsinki Svamp happening this month too. [link]
• Friday 24 Feb - Fake it Til You Make It, February edition.  FITYMI is Justin Tyler Tate's monthly workgroup where participants show up without knowing what they will make. Last month everyone created cutout-style animations, and the month before we made inflatable sculptures. [link]
• Saturday 25 Feb - 'Fast and Raw' intermediate sushi workshop.  Justin also leads a regular workshop at Ptarmigan on sushi-making, which also includes knife-sharpening. Sign up at the Ptarmigan site.  [link]
• Monday 27 Feb - Fermented foods club, February meeting. I just made some natto which I will share with everyone (I made a lot) - if anyone can stomach it. I also got some tempeh spores so if I have time (unlikely), then I might try making that.  [link]
• Tuesday 28 Feb - Symposium, the Eesti Humanities association's regular symposium series, resumes activity. Programme TBA.

Performances, concerts  and exhibitions

• How ta tawk & dans rite - Ptarmigans Helsinki and Tallinn both are producing an interactive media/dance performance piece by Joey Chua Poh Yi, Rhys Turner, Anna Rouhu, and Guadalupe López.  The events have already begun in Helsinki and next week we give it a go at Ptarmigan Tallinn. There's only space for 15 audience members per performance; though it's free, we ask that you register through our website for which performance you would like to attend. All of the individual performances are set as separate events, so go to www.ptarmigan.ee and pick the one you want.
• Saturday 18 Feb - Ö-E-R orchestra, As Artistas Plasticos, Re:partisan. At Kodu Baar, in Tallinn, we're having a mixed show of music/sound meeting dance and performance. Featuring artists from Helsinki, performing in Tallinn. You know, that's the way it's supposed to work... [link]
• Thurdsay 1 March - Lewis McGuffie, Ptarmigan's Director of Creative Hemispheres, will open an exhibition at our gallery space in Tallinn, Tiib. [link]

Talks, presentations, screenings

• Monday 6 Feb - Clip Kino comes back to Tallinn with Viktor Lillemäe presenting a selection of his favourite American propaganda films from the 1950's.  This is the sequel to the Clip Kino he curated last May. Wow, it's been ages since we did a Clip Kino. [link]
• Wednesday 8 Feb - Luciana Ohira & Sergio Bonilha present "transimmanence" + Jane Hughes presents ¨Imagining Other Worlds¨.  This is a Labyrinths and Rings performance/presentation by two Brasilian artists and former Ptarmigan artist Jane Hughes, in Helsinki.  At XL Art Space. [link]
• Tuesday 21 Feb - As William "Bilwa" Costa and Martín Lanz Landázuri will do a 'Labyrinths and Rings' in Tallinn, presenting their Resonance project and screening a performance from The Kitchen NYC last December. [link]
• Wednesday 29 Feb - Leap day! I'm going to run a Liminal Images night, though I haven't worked out the programme yet, and it might be guest-curated.

Other events

• Monday 13 Feb - Slothrop's Books is going to have a belated opening party from 19:00 - 21:00. We'll have free wine, some musical entertainment probably, and a festive atmosphere. [link]
• Thursday 23 Feb - I'm going to do the DJ night at Kodu Baar that I meant to do monthly, but haven't actually managed to. I'll play vinyl in various forms: krautrock, prog, art-rock, jazz, psych, and other strange pulses. Kodu Baar is at Vaimu 1 in Old Town and I'll probably play from 21:00 til about 1 or 2 AM depending on the crowd. Lewis will make a really ridiculous and cryptic poster. We're thinking about trying to make one in the shape of a snowflake.

If you're in Tallinn, please stop by Slothrop's on Müürivahe 19.  You'll find a large selection of secondhand books in English - literature, history, art, politics, essays, criticism -- the works.  Slothrop's is open Tuesday through Saturday from 12 to 18, Eastern European Time.  Soon we'll hopefully have a (carefully-curated) selection of independent publications and analogue musics for your shopping enjoyment.

•  I've been based in or around Tallinn for one year now.  Ptarmigan I can say has been going well; it's been an amazing thing and it's more momentum than inertia here.  We've had too much going on to fully talk about here, as we've had something like 80 events since April, but there's lots in the works for 2012, the Year of Our Culture Hangover.
• Helsinki Ptarmigan as well is bubbling with activity, thanks to the efforts of Sari TM Kivinen, Ptarmigan's Director/Janitor.  We managed a lot, I think, despite having no physical space throughout the year, and there are some great new projects bubbling up.
• I'm thinking about getting back into recording, working on the followup to the Boat Trip LP which I have about half-recorded, but has been dormant for a few months.  

Here's the video from the most recent Bat Tarbet performance, last Sunday at Koko-Teatteri in Helsinki.  Thanks to Juho Jouhtimäki for shooting and sharing this.

Bat Tarbet will be performing at the two-day It's All In Your Mind event, at Vaihtolava in Kallio, Helsinki.  This will be our first performance in over a year and our first performance in Finland.  We're playing Saturday around 19:30 but I recommend the whole event as there will be lots of interesting music there!