A SILENT MOMENT
„A Silent Moment“ was a group project and a art-based practice within the Master‘s Degree Programme, Arctic Art and Design. The aim of the course was to investigate the University of Lapland in terms of the social-cultural aspects and to use it as a venue for a socially engaged art project.
The main venue our group choose within the University was the restaurant Petronella. Petronella is a spacious and bright restaurant located in the F-Building of Faculty of Art & Design. It is very crowded during lunch time and has a bad acoustic. After questioning students, staff and visitors, we discovered that there are mixed opinions about the place. Students like it a lot as a space itself, restaurant and meeting point but the staff is facing the load of work to serve most of the people because the other, bigger restaurant was closed at that time of observation. They were also more exhausted and stressed because of the loud noise this restaurant space creates because of its architecture.
In the end, we decided to create a silent moment to thank the staff members for their hard work and to raise awareness to the noise the workers are exposed to for most of their day. Implementation of the idea was held during the busiest time of the lunch break, inviting the people, eating in the restaurant, to a minute of silence for the staff members. The people in Petronella were encouraged, by an anonymous voice coming from the speakers, to put down knife and forks and give the staff a moment of silence.
The result was stunning. Everyone did as the voice told them and Petronella was, for once, a silent place.
