Basic art education – the source of Riihimäki's creativity

Ehompi is a story series in which the mayor Jouni Eho talks about everyday life, work and Riihimäki.

I participated as an invited guest in Riihimäki Teatter's premiere, the show All My Friends starring the legendary Miitta Sorvali at the beginning of October. As is the etiquette of the premiere, we stayed after the show to congratulate the Actors and Petteri Summas, who directed the show.

After the performance, we discussed the importance of art and culture for the city of Riihimäki and its inhabitants. The former athlete, current professional leader, was particularly impressed by following and participating in dialogue with art professionals. By breaking the boundaries of different sectors and looking at things outside one's own box, new ideas and questions often arise - like this time:

"What could I learn from the director-writer-producer perspective in my own work as a city manager?"

"Could the vision of professional artists be used more widely in urban development?"

"If Riihimäki's art and culture scene is considered such a tough thing even among art professionals, how well does the general public know this?"

Inspired by the discussions, the idea developed that we would make visible the strong basic art education of the city of Riihimäki and at the same time try to arouse a national discussion on the topic of what kind of role basic art education plays in building the well-being of children and young people in cities and municipalities.

Basic art education is outside school, primarily intended for children and young people, teaching in various art fields. Students get the skills to express themselves and apply for vocational and higher education in the arts. In basic art education, students study architecture, visual arts, handicrafts, media arts, music, verbal arts, circus arts, dance or theater arts.

Basic art education in Riihimäki has strong traditions. The Riihimäki Youth Theater in particular is known as a national pioneer. Almost 2000 children and young people from our city participate in basic art education every year.

In Riihimäki's city strategy, one of the three goals is the home of the creators of the future. We want to create well-being for the people of Riihimäkä with the help of high-quality education and culture, as well as versatile education. In this way, we give children and young people opportunities to realize themselves in a variety of ways, and at the same time we encourage them to get to know their creative side. Creativity is indeed one of the most important professional skills when thinking about the factors of the future. In a global survey commissioned by IBM in 2010 for more than 1500 CEOs, creativity emerged as the most important characteristic when asked what means in the business world can be used to pilot organizations in the face of increasing uncertainties in the operating environment.

Creativity is therefore not an optional extra spice aimed at the few and chosen, and not just for "cultural homes", but the hard core of basic skills. Basic art education is an important way to get to know different aspects of creativity, for example through visual arts, dance, theater or music.

Corona tested our society from many directions. Korona punished children's and young people's hobby activities as well as the art and culture industry particularly hard. Cities and municipalities play an important role when overcoming the effects of the corona virus on the public and private functions mentioned above. It is more than timely to continue the national discussion about how we could prevent the marginalization of children and young people even more effectively, lower the threshold to participate in inexpensive hobby activities and promote cross-border cooperation between different art fields. Basic art education is one platform for this discussion.

In this context, I would like to thank all colleagues, partners, parents of children, children and young people, and alumni who work in basic art education at Riihimäki. You are an important part of our city's identity, an attraction factor - a real source of creativity.

Special thanks to Pete Summanen for accepting the challenge and for making Riihimäk's ​​know-how visible to the whole nation in your own way.

Next Riihimäki!