Theatre-maker Sarah Krasnow's performance project On Guard is an ongoing work based on people's experiences in museums. This summer, inspired by the urban environment of Rauma, it will include itinerant performances, monologues, movement and video. On Guard is a project which Krasnow started at the Catwalk Arts Residency in Catskill, New York.

Inspired and themed by museum guards, the movement choreography is based on the physicality of art guarding and viewing. Museum professionals, who both provide and restrict access to art and who sometimes have little contact with the art they protect, are seen and heard through Krasnow's interviews with them in Rauma. Museum guardians become one of the subjects of art and are no longer inconspicuous. 

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, features Duane Hanson's hyper-realistic, life-size sculpture of a museum guard. It depicts an elderly man in a security guard's uniform; museum visitors usually ignore the work when they think it's a real person, and only notice it when they realise it's a sculpture. The sculptures by local Rauma artist Kerttu Horila reminded Sarah Krasnow of Hanson's work, and thus Krasnow's work in Rauma has expanded into notions of stillness and movement, of looking at and looking away in places where we least expect it.

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The material for the performances at the Rauma Art Museum was generated from questionnaires and conversations with eight museum workers from the Rauma Maritime Museum and the Merimakasiini, as well as from the Rauma Museum's Marela and Town Hall. Special thanks to them. The audio recordings were made at the Rauma Museum and at the Pharmacy Museum & the Qwensel House and Luostarinmäki in Turku. 

Additional museum workers and material from: Luostarinmäki, Turku; Designmuseo, Helsinki; Musée Pompidou, Paris, France; Collection Lambert, Avignon, France; New Museum, New York, USA; Patrick Bringley at Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA; Darrel Ellis at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, USA.

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Krasnow's work “Look Don’t Look” was inspired by a visit to Bali, Indonesia, where Canang sari offerings can be found everywhere. These offerings include various items, usually flowers, rice, incense, cigarettes, candies, or money, placed in banana-leaf or palm-leaf trays or baskets (sari means “essence” and canang refers to the tray). It is a Balinese Hindu practice that is intended to honor and please the gods. 

As a visitor to Bali, Krasnow found Canang Sari a delight to encounter. Unexpected and colorful, they add beauty to an already beautiful setting. She has made some origami boxes inspired by the Canang Sari and placed them around Vanha Rauma, which is a beautiful environment; however, like anywhere else, there are places here that we may not find beautiful or that we simply find unremarkable. These boxes are an expansion of her theme of looking where we normally do not think to look. Something beautiful and colorful helps us to remember to look; as we observe a place that we would not necessarily have noticed, we can also ask ourselves: was it beautiful to begin with?