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Aalto Siilo: Farewell to Hoppers 24th September

‘FAREWELL TO THE HOPPERS’

September 24th, 2022

On September 24th, Factum Foundation in collaboration with Oulu2026 the European Capital of Culture 2026, will be organising a series of performances, projections and a concert in the iconic Silo by Alvar Aalto in Meri-Toppila. Freely open to the public and available on Facebook streaming ,‘FAREWELL TO THE HOPPERS’ is the first event of AaltoSiilo project produced by Factum Foundation as part of Oulu2026 culture programme.

The event will start with local DJs and audiovisual artists on the grounds surrounding the Silo, located in the Meri Toppila district of Oulu. The main show, offered by Finnish percussion group Transistori, will be performed inside the iconic building designed by architects Alvar and Aino Aalto. The audience will be able to experience Transistori’s performance through a LED screen installed outside the Silo.

Two industrial metal hoppers formerly used during the cellulose-making process will be dismantled and removed from site in 2023, as part of the restoration works undertaken by the Factum Foundation and Skene Catling de la Peña. A third one was already removed from the Silo during checks to the structural integrity of the building in the past years. The cavernous and peculiar sound of these metal hoppers caught the attention of Finnish percussion group Transistori, who specialises in instruments built from scrap and recycled materials. The performance will highlight and explore the industrial past of the Toppila Pulp Mill Silo and its rebirth after restoration.

The group, composed of six musicians and two sound engineers, all originally from Oulu, will use the hoppers and funnels as percussion instruments during the performance, remixing and enhancing their sound using electronic beats, synthesizers and drum machines. The interior of the Silo will act as a resonating chamber, transforming the building into an urban-sized musical instrument.

The Silo, designed to store wood chips for cellulose production and located in the Meri Toppila area of Oulu, is currently undergoing restoration. The not-for-profit Factum Foundation and the award-winning architectural practice Skene Catling de la Peña, who acquired the Silo in 2020, aim to repurpose it as a multi-purpose centre for the digital preservation of industrial heritage in the North.

Event timetable and lineup, Sep 24th, 2022

4-7 pm DJ sets by Crash Doom, Miha, Otilia
7-8 pm Audiovisual performances by Ohmudog
8-9 pm Transistori

Event site: AALTOSIILO, Alvar Aallon katu, 5
90520 Oulu, Northern Ostrobothnia, Finland.

Facebook event

Watch live from Twitch 24th Sep, 16:00 

Transistori 

  • Performers: Jukkis Määttä, Jaakko Jokipii, Pekka Heinonen, Lauri Sallamo, Aki Latvamäki, Jaakko Niemelä
  • Sound tech: Mikko Pohjola, Lauri Sukanen


CONTACT INFO

Heikki Myllylahti, Producer heikki.myllylahti@oulu2026.eu

Factum Foundation: Valentino Tignanelli – valti.tigna@factum-arte.com

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The Factum Foundation for Digital Technology in Preservation is a not-for-profit organisation founded in 2009 in Madrid by Adam Lowe. It works alongside its sister company, Factum Arte, a multi-disciplinary workshop in Madrid dedicated to digital mediation and physical transformation in contemporary art and the production of facsimiles. The Foundation was established to demonstrate the importance of documenting, monitoring, studying, recreating and disseminating the world’s cultural heritage through the rigorous development of high-resolution recording and rematerialisation techniques. The Foundation’s activities include building digital archives for preservation and further study, creating and organising touring exhibitions, setting up training centres for locals to master the different technologies developed by the Foundation in order to record their own cultural heritage, and producing exact facsimiles as part of a new approach to conservation and restoration. Their work spans all continents, with many projects throughout Europe, Africa and the Americas. They are now beginning a many-faceted project on the impact of environmental change on cultural heritage in and around the arctic circle.

https://www.factumfoundation.org/

Skene Catling de la Peña is an architecture practice based in London and Madrid, founded in 2003 by Charlotte Skene Catling. She has developed a unique approach she calls ‘Geoarcheology’, which seeks to excavate meaning from context as a means of developing architecture, by transforming observations about the composition of the earth, historical artefacts and the cultural landscapes of their commissions. Skene Catling de la Peña are experienced in the design and integration of contemporary projects into listed buildings and sensitive historic contexts. Recent work includes the AALTOSIILO, a pioneering project focused on re-use and renewal through Alvar Aalto’s first industrial building at the edge of the arctic circle in Finland. Their Flint House for Jacob Rothschild was extruded from the Buckinghamshire landscape in strata of flint and chalk (RIBA ‘House of the Year’ 2015). Their work on Fidelio, a sitespecific Opera at the Perm World Heritage Site, Russia, was awarded the Perm Prize for Arts and Culture. They regularly collaborate with Factum Foundation and together have recently completed the permanent installation, In Ictu Oculi – In the Blink of an Eye, at The Spanish Gallery, Bishop Auckland. Skene Catling has written about architecture in The Burlington Magazine, The Architectural Review and ARCH+, and DOMUS magazine. She launched the architectural film festival, ArchFilmFest, in London in 2017, ran a post-graduate architecture unit at the RCA for five years and taught architecture at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Skene Catling de la Peña has won many awards for its approach and has been extensively published internationally.

https://www.scdlp.net/

The Finnish city of Oulu is the 2026 European Capital of Culture. Our mission, Cultural Climate Change brings together culture, art, and technology in exciting and sometimes unexpected ways to create new encounters between people, and to help us reconnect with each other. Oulu will be the center stage for European culture in 2026 with a diverse, engaging culture programme.
The AaltoSiilo project is part of Creative Village programme line that aims to reshape the city and its cultural climate by adding places for creativity in the urban space. The project is part of wider programme theme Wild City.
Read more about our culture programme.