In Kilpisjärvi, a peculiar village surrounded by alluring fells, I spent a magical two November weeks in residency at Kilpisjärvi Biological station through the Bioart Society.
At the Biological station, I slept in a wing of rooms with a long corridor where the light flickered as you turned it on, reminiscent of a hospital. It felt almost forbidden to stay in the station after the staff had gone home for the day, like being in a museum or at school after closing.
The road outside the station in early dawn.
I came to Kilpisjärvi intending to complete a work on water as a geomorphic agent, documenting how the ice age and the expanding force of Lake Kilpisjärvi as it freezes had formed the landscape. However, after observing how the station operates, diligently measuring fluctuations in the landscape year after year, I was instead inspired to make a work on the field studies done at the station.
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The Biological station was established in 1968 when a man by the name of Olavi Kalela became fascinated with the life of lemmings and hired a cottage from which to study them.
The staff that work at the station live close by the once cottage, now well-equipped station, in housing provided by the university. They conduct their own research, but primarily monitor fluctuations in the landscape. In the warmer months the station staff count berries using a grid and monitor the state of fish in Lake Kilpisjärvi. For several days the team puts three nets in the lake overnight, each night at a different depth.
One of the oldest long-term data collections at the station is the birch seed collection. Every last day of the month during summer, the field team changes the bags from about 15 funnels that are set up in the nature reserve named Saana herb-rich forest. The seeds are then counted and the results logged in a database.
Ana and Oula changing batteries in the LIFE PLAN trail cameras.
The seeds are tiny and fly away if you breathe too harshly by them. The work of counting them requires strict focus.
This type of work, field work, a work of careful observation, counting and annotating has traditionally been done by hand on location in nature.
Now, much of the field work at the station is no longer done by human hands but rather by machines, and the staff at the station function to service the machines that monitor and collect samples. The staff refills the fuel of the machines, and shelter them from the reindeer and snow.
One of these machines is the cyclone, which is used in a greater project called LIFE PLAN, which the station is a part of. LIFE PLAN is a project to monitor biodiversity over the world and states that it’s enthusiastic intent is to:
“Together, we will generate the most ambitious, globally distributed and systematically collected data set to date on a broad range of taxonomical groups.”
The cyclone, set on top of a hill, collects airborne spores, a cell that certain plants produce, from the air. This collection of spores is gathered twice a week.
Another machine under the station care is the ICOS (Integrated Carbon Observation System) tower, which measures how much carbon dioxide, water vapor and heat move between the ground and the atmosphere.
On a mission to refill fuel in the ICOS-tower.
Both these machines, as well as the station's trail cameras are set atop of hills you reach through either a winding path through blueberry and lingonberry bushes, or a long road once built by Russian prisoners of war.
There is something poetic and lonesome in making the trek from the road up the hill to the towers to refill fuel, shave off snow or change batteries in the machines used to survey the landscape.
I became interested in this shift in how field work is conducted, human hands being used in new ways.
The film I am now working on as an outcome of my residency in Kilpisjärvi has the working title FIELD STUDIES and covers this change in monitoring nature, as well as the visual language of field studies.
Observations are quantified, turned into data sets and graphs and then interpreted and explained. Research is published, publications written and large posters to convey findings on are displayed. In these, a particular visual language is used, one who is not so concerned with aesthetics but with information.
The film will be screened in Malmö, Sweden spring 2025 and possibly in Kilpisjärvi summer 2025.
Filming by the pier that crumbled and folded when Lake Kilpisjärvi froze 2023.
At the station, I was invited to come along on maintenance excursions with Oula Kalttopää, who I want to extend a big thank you to for his kindness and for sharing his knowledge with me.
I also want to thank Leena Valkeapää, who took great care of me in terms of help and advice on practical matters, but also inspired me with her decisive and adventurous spirit.
Thank you to Ana Bothelo, station intern, for being a delightful company and assisting with shooting the film, and thank you to the rest of the staff at the station; Pirjo, Janne, Kirsi and Hannu who were all warm and open.
Also, of course - thank you to Bioart Society and especially Milla Millasnoore for being flexible with me and making this possible in the first place.
Enchanted fells indeed- from the book Tarujen Tunturit by Asko Kaikusalo