How do we deal with the retreat of the North as we know it? How do we navigate the ever-approaching uncertainty and wickedness of change? The Wait and Hear group proposes an open exploration based on listening. It extends an invitation to encounter, experience and comment on Kilpisjärvi – the region, the lake, the settlement, the living – as what we will refer to as Organism(s), through which a manifold of consequences and influences of human intervention, their diffusion, and their interrelations are starkly noticeable. While we spend time in the field and critically analyze our surroundings, ourselves, and our interrelation to the different forms Kilpisjärvi presents itself, we will try to resist the urge to immediately engage for as long as possible. Instead, we will gather on fells listening to wind, stones and water. We will observe the hustle and bustle of the border town with all its social and cultural clashes. Last but not least, we will engage with the various stakeholders that are entangled within the Organism(s) themselves. Our gathered insights will unfold into collaborative experiments and in-situ interventions, offering possibilities to encounter, provoke, comment, and interact with Kilpisjärvi. Wait and Hear addresses people that are curious and willing to commit to an open form of learning and experimentation through attuning, mindful listening, contemplation, critical reflection but also careful action and (sonic or other) intervention. Hence it is only natural that we try to put together a diverse and inclusive group. While our activities will be based on listening and somatic experience, other practices, as they may be introduced by participants, are warmly and explicitly welcome.
The group participants include Alicja Staniszewska, Bartaku, Jan Christian Schulz, Joshua Le Gallienne and Mari Mäkiö. The group is hosted by Till Bovermann.
TALE group is part of the Rewilding Cultures Creative Europe project. The Rewilding Cultures wants to reposition the wild after COVID-19 and focus on inclusivity and ecology within the art, science and technology.
From early on, Alicja Staniszewska has developed an interest in arts and others, human and non-human and I learn from them throughout my life. After moving to Finland in 2021, Staniszewska continues her education on a doctoral level by studying the similarities between human and ticks migration to the north and the discourse around it. She has been working with community arts in different countries for 7 years and can use these tools in research, evaluation and art to give voice to marginalised human and non-human representatives.
Bartaku’s art practice plays with separation narratives and manifestations. In a deep transdisciplinary way, it queers borders between process and result, audience and makers. Since 2009, most interventions, objects, lectures, labs & writings have been evolving in attunement with a plantation in Latvia. As a Doctor of Art, focusing on cooling tower microbiomes, he is visiting researcher at the New Energy Technologies Group, Aalto University & the department of Microbiology, Ghent University.
Jan Christian Schulz is a Social Designer, Researcher and Writer based in Germany and The Netherlands. His practice involves the investigation of metamorphing environments and the constitution of ecosystemic relationships through sensorial media. Operating on the intersection of design and science, Schulz complements his theoretic work with the creation of socio-ecological interventions that establish collaborative structures and shared realities among humans, non-humans and their inhabiting environments.
Joshua Le Gallienne is a non-binary British artist exploring the materiality of sound in an artistic context. Through sculpture, installation and performance, the artist stages intimate experiences exploring the relationships between acoustic sound, physical materials and environmental phenomena. Joshua’s work has been regularly presented in the UK and internationally; primarily outside of a traditional gallery context. Their current research considers non-binary trans perspectives of listening.
Mari Mäkiö is a multidisciplinary artist based in Helsinki Finland. She works mainly with installation, combining different media from sound and video to ceramics and prints. Her artworks are often site-specific. In the core of Mäkiö’s artistic process is collaboration; it can mean shared process with other people or working in close connection with the environment. She has graduated as Master of Arts from Aalto University from the Photography Department in 2015 and has been working actively as an artist since.
Till Bovermann aka LFSaw is an artist and scientist, working with field recording and interactive sound programming, creating sonic experiences and hypothetical islands of immersion and reflection. He has shown his work and self-made instruments at international institutions, among others, Ars Electonica Linz and ZKM Karlsruhe. Prior to his current employment as professor of Sound Art at HMTM München, he has worked as a post-doctoral researcher at various places, such as Aalto University, Helsinki and UdK Berlin. Bovermann is co-founder of the contact microphone company plonk and part of the artist collective friendly.organisms, which is dedicated to pursuing artistic interventions with organisms of various forms and sizes. Alongside his artistic and academic work, Bovermann develops software in and for SuperCollider and Faust.
Photo by Till Bovermann, http://tai-studio.org