Today R and B didn’t stand for Rhianna and Beyoncé but for Syrian Arab Airlines RB402 from Madrid to Damascus. There was no inflight entertainment but I was reading El País newspaper with big demonstrations on its first page – the revolt was not in Syria but Israel. Kati from the Finnish Institute, that hosts me in Damascus, has told that the name of the Southern neighbor can never been mentioned in Syria, our code name is Iisalmi (a town in Eastern Finland). In Syria it’s called the Zionist entity.

I was seated next to an Aleppian guy who has lived 12 years in Madrid and this was his first visit back home. He said there was no trouble in Aleppo. Right, but would I think like that on my way to Helsinki saying that the situation is fine because the Finnish Army is killing civilians only in Tampere and Turku. Maybe he was an agent of the securitry apparatus of the Baath party and trying to find out if I sympathize with the opposition.

The first thing Anniina, the trainee of the institute, told me when I arrived, was that the building is microphoned and my e-mails are read. Do they really monitor us so closely that they have Finnish speaking staff listening to the conversation? The infrastructure of the country looks poor but maybe they spend the money for more crucial things. Anniina informed me also about an escape route to use if the situation escalates and the pillage begins. She recommends me to have an emergency bag always prepared. I remember that I was told that when I was in a residency in Tokyo - but it was for earthquakes. We have a Toyota Land Cruiser with a full tank and diplomat number plates ready to rush to Beirut in a case of emergency.

So I got in the country but it wasn’t that easy. The border police took me to a backroom to an interrogation. Five agents were asking me about my profession.  I had written on the immigration card painter. It was tactical – I think it sounds more neutral than artist, it could refer to any surface finishing – but it was also the first time I have called myself painter. My professor Henry would have loved that. In the interrogation I tried to smile and look stupid though I was shitting my pants.

First impressions: a) Photos of president Bashar al-Assad are omnipresent. The cult of personality is overwhelming. Mr. Assad never looks towards us in the photos but somewhere to a glorious future. b) No police anywhere. How should I interpret this? Maybe the less you see police, the more agents there are around us. c) People do picnics by the highway between the airport and the city. Maybe it’s the only place where you have a strip of grass in this desert land. d) Pepsi is bigger than Coke here.

I feel a bit desperate because the Operation Golden Monkey closes tomorrow in Helsinki and practically nothing has been sold. It would be easy to blame always the gallerists but if none of them is able to place my work anywhere, the problem must be in the artist or in the artwork.

Tomorrow I'm going to Syria. This might be my last assault to be a successful artist. Syria under revolt can provide me tremendous material to create my best work ever. I need to be stronger, harder and faster.

My wife is worried for me traveling to a war zone. I´m worried just because I don’t know if I get in because I don’t have a visa. Finnish citizens can get – at least before the conflict – the visa at the border because there is no Syrian diplomatic representation in Helsinki.

I have to be an artist like a Navy SEAL.

Press release (translated from Finnish)

The artist Riiko Sakkinen spends the period between Septmember 4 and October 2 in a residency in Damascus. The residency is organized by the Finnish Fund for Art Exchange Frame and the Finnish Institute in the Middle East. Sakkinen will be staying at the Institute in Damascus. In addition, he gives a workshop for local art students in Aleppo at Le Pont Galler, which organizes international art festivals in the city. During the residency, Riiko Sakkinen will be collecting visual material to compose  a work titled The Riiko Sakkinen Syrian Encyclopedia.

Currently almost all Syrian cities have anti-government demonstrations with hundreds of thousands of participants. Violence breaks out across the country on a daily basis. The government has arrested many people, including artists. Representatives of the media are not really allowed enter to the country.

In this situation, the artists should not boycott the country, but their duty is to strengthen contacts with local actors. Traveling to Syria is not safe but  it is more insecure to live there permanently or study art or work as artist, Sakkinen says.

Riiko Sakkinen was born in 1976 in Helsinki and he lives in Spain. His works deal with the global consumer culture and politics. His works have been censored in China and South Korea. Sakkinen's works are included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

I'm supposed to travel to Damascus, Syria, next Sunday. I´m going to be artist-in-residence at the Finnish Institute in the Middle East, if the delicate situation of the country allows it and the Institute continues working normally.

My schedule includes a visit to Aleppo where Issa Touma, the director of the Le Pont gallery, the International Photo Festival and the International Women's Art Festival, has invited me to lecture and give a two-day workshop to the local students. I have my flights from Damascus to Aleppo September 8th.

The theme of the workshop are lists. I'm going to ask the art students to create lists drawings like the works I've been doing several years. I give the form and they put the content. I imagine that we could have a great set of Syrian lists ranging from football to politics and from nail polish to religion. Or maybe the participants surprise me with something totally different. I'm going to propose them to use the lists for my installation at the Access & Paradox Art Fair, where I do a solos show with Galerie e.l Bannwarth in October.

The Urban Dictionary describes an intellectual as someone who has found something more interesting than sex and alcohol. I get excited when people listen to what I want to say.

I was invited to form part of the HS-raati. It is a group of 120 Finnish intellectuals who tell weekly their opinions on current issues in Helsingin Sanomat, the almighty newspaper in Finland.

I think I achieved one of my goals as artist and public person. I'm interviewed now every week. This is the role that I always wanted to have. And I promise that I´m not going give good answers but I´ll be more caustic, mordacious and corroding than ever.

Lenin remarked  that the intelligentsia is not the brain of the nation, it is the feces of the nation. Ladies and gentlemen, be prepared to shit your pants!