aRzu & Maria Lepistö
North Escaping residency presentation & discussion
24th May 2023
SOLU Space, Panimokatu 1, 3rd floor
at 19:00

aRzu and Maria Lepistö are currently in the North Escaping residency at Kilpisjärvi Biological Station. They will present their project and residency results at the new SOLU Space in the Kalasatama area in Helsinki on Wednesday 24th May 2023, starting at 19:00. We offer some snacks and refreshments. Warmly welcome!

Below the introduction for the evening by the artists aRzu and Maria Lepistö:

We are a Belgium-Denmark based artist duo working with sound, performance and storytelling. Following a one-month residency at Kilpisjärvi Biological Station, we will share our collective research and work in process in the format of an artist talk with performance, followed by a discussion. We present various experiments, drawings that unmake the world and unlearn the known, props, recordings of poetry recited on mountain slopes and songs.

Site specific to this area we focus on the mountain Saana. In a collage-like manner we are creating a semi-fictional narrative with quotes from the tourism industry, scientific research, Finnish folk songs, American Pop songs and poetry from ancient Mesopotamia describing a battle between a goddess and a defiant mountain. .

Our work revolves around how we, humans, relate to the environment, a love-hate relationship of devotion and destruction. We want to be nurtured, but we don't want to get our feet wet in the melting snow. Speaking to local scientists, we encounter a drive to preserve nature by recording it, yet we have no time to listen to it,

We are interested in the aesthetic and political values we project on landscapes through language and stories. Using humor, we want to capture the anticlimax, disappointments and failures of Finland's most iconic mountain to live up to our expectations.

How does a mountain become holy? How does ancient mythology and scientific measurements become political rhetoric?

 

Psst! We currently have an open call for the next North Escaping residency under the Ars Bioarctica residency program at the Kilpisjärvi Biological Station! More information on our website.