SINERGIA 

Sinergia was a residency project organized and hosted by Monoma Suomi and Mushrooming, running from November 2023 to June 2024. It brought together three Helsinki-based artists: Pablo Riestra (Chile/Finland), Nadia Tapia (Chile/Finland), and Maria Gatsal (Mexico/Spain).

The residency itself was organized to bring life back to the building and help preserve it, since it had been partly empty and unused for a while. We chose the name Sinergia — Spanish for synergy — because it captured the spirit of the project: a collective experience that would go beyond individual efforts, offering a space for encounters, discoveries, and joy. The space featured exhibitions of Pablo's paintings, which brought color, art, and a unique atmosphere to our shared environment. 

We decided to work together because we are foreign artists living in Helsinki, and wanted to build community while also finding ways to share more of our own professional work with others. So this residency became the medium to facilitate artistic activities and events combining painting, dance, acting, and movement, while also networking and bringing people together. The residency also gave us the opportunity to have time and the space for our personal  practices. 

಄ The space

It was ideal for what we needed — spacious and filled with natural light, with a kitchen, a storage room, nearby bathrooms, and elevator access when needed. The kitchen let us offer snacks and beverages during activities, which encouraged people to stay longer, connect, and socialize. 

The room itself was long, almost elongated in shape, and yet it never felt fixed. Somehow it turned cozy and small for the events that needed intimacy, and opened up spacious and expansive for the ones that needed room to move. It felt like the space changed depending on what was asked of it — which, over the months, came to include GYROKINESIS®, Argentinian tango, contemporary dance, Meisner and acting classes, and Pablo's painting exhibitions.

Socializing was an important part of the project throughout. Building community is essential within arts and cultural spaces, and meaningful social exchange contributes something real to people's well-being — especially, as it turned out, during a Finnish winter.

ᝰ The paintings

Pablo's work transformed the space. What could have been a plain studio became somewhere warm and alive — his canvases sparked conversations before classes even began, making every arrival feel like a welcome.

☾Alone at night

The best moments were the unexpected ones: the hours I spent alone in the space, moving freely, creating without an agenda. Days felt structured — workshop, prepare, deliver. Nights felt like permission to simply be.

𖠋 My classes

I taught Dance & Movement and Meisner Technique during the residency. The simple setup of the space worked surprisingly well for Meisner — small groups turned out to be an advantage, since the technique works one pair at a time. In Dance & Movement, the goal was never choreography or technique, but exploration: your own movement, your body, your interactions with others. I also organized evenings of just dancing and socializing — no agenda, just people moving together.

༄ Nadia's classes

I joined Nadia's tango and Gyrokinesis sessions myself, and each time I left more open, more grounded, more aware of my body's alignment. She also made sharing the space feel effortless — organized, fair, generous.

♡ Space and community

Sinergia reminded me how essential it is for artists to have spaces — not just to work in, but to simply exist and create in. And just as essential, it reminded me how much people need places where they can explore something that interests them, safely and without pressure.