29 September 1999

Hi Rita!

I am writing this from the children's internet facility at the Kiasma Museum in Helsinki, using a Finnish keyboard which is not as familiar-looking as I'd assumed! As Liz from the Art House told me, it's a fabulous building, although I haven't seen much of it yet - I arrived from the airport last night to go straight into a TV interview (for a weekly arts programme) in the main lobby, and came back first thing this morning to do an interview and photoshoot for a national daily newspaper - also in the lobby! Now I've got as far as this room - just off the lobby - so that I can contact you before going off to have lunch with the Threshold Association of disabled people here in Helsinki. I don't think that I'm going to have a very restful week!

But I'm really enjoying myself - the journey was very easy (easier than travelling with a companion, when you just get left to cope on your own rather than getting help from the airline) and the hotel, just up the road from Kiasma, is very comfortable, and I am getting VIP treatment generally. I am trying hard to pretend that this is the kind of treatment a disabled artist from the UK is used to, but I suspect that the large grin gives me away ;-) I can't believe that the new Tate gallery of contemporary art will give this kind of profile to disability art in its first 18 months, but I hope I'm wrong . . .

Anyway, I haven't got as far as being able to pick up my home email yet, so the safest thing is to email me at this hotmail account as well. Whether I'll be able to update the website while I'm here I don't know, nor do I know how easy it will be to pick up photos, but at least I'm contactable (and thinking of you a lot). One thing that I did want to say is that I don't think it matters whether the casts of the footprints are very obvious or not - traces of the past often aren't unless you look carefully.

I'll try to get back to this account this afternoon, but if not definitely tomorrow morning.

All best wishes

ju90

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ju90@netmatters.co.uk
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