Wild herb pizzas queuing for the oven in Kalasatama
Last Saturday 21 May was a historical day in Helsinki. For one day, anyone could start their own pop-up restaurant, anywhere, and regardless of what the rules say. The first ever Ravintolapäivä (Restaudant Day) was a carneval-like celebration in favour of richer food cultures and against rules that sometimes make food such a complicated question. Organised through a Facebook event, small and original restaurants popped up just for a few hours – on the streets, parks, clothing shops or homes, offering tapas, drinks, smoothies, popsicles and even fancy dinners served at home in the evening.
During the early 2011, Urban Dream Management has been busy exploring and writing less. In February, I had the chance to spend a month flâneuring the streets of New York, where spring was making its first attempts to beat the cold weather.
“What if we, ordinary people, could decide what kinds of messages we see on a bus stop, for a change”. This was the idea of Elissa Eriksson, art education student who became tired of the overload of commercial messages in public space. Last December, she started a Facebook campaign, called