Perspectives, realignments and suggestions for coexistence with multiple and diverse beings, circumstances and realities.
How to make space for other ways of being—for the stories, untamedness, needs, and experiential worlds of nonhuman animals, beings, and different natural places? How to recognize the value of and to care for the invisible, the unfamiliar, and the truths and lives different from our own—worlds we do not know? How to attend to the wonder, complexity, and vastness that make up our shared world?
The starting point for the event is a need to imagine futures in which human action is no longer based on exploitation, individualism, coercion, and destruction, but instead guided by listening, care, and compassion within networks of multispecies communities. Behind the works presented are not only love for diverse forms of life, but also questions of oppression, indifference and grief.
With-happening will include photography, moving image, text, sculpture, sound, and performance. During the event these works and perspectives come together as a shared space, intertwining, presenting viewpoints, and engaging in dialogue with one another and with audiences. The event also includes a series of Earth Talks- conversations, where the artists open up the backgrounds of their work.
Participating artists: Matilda Aaltonen & Salla Tuomivaara, Outimaija Hakala, Mia Halme, Anttoni Halonen, Heli Keskikallio, Kaisu Koivisto, Veli Lehtovaara & Eija-Liisa Ahtila & Jani Hietanen, Eläinoikeusakatemia & Matilda Aaltonen & Laura Gustafsson, Leena Valkeapää & Oula A. Valkeapää, Soile Voima.
The event is curated and produced by Heli Keskikallio and Soile Voima.
Opening hours:
Tue-Thu klo 14 - 19
Fri-Mo klo 12 - 19
Thank you for the support the City of Helsinki, Arts Promotion Center Finland and Finnish Cultural Foundation.
Schedule and event info
Tuesday, Oct 7th Opening 18:00-21:00
Welcome!
Wednesday, Oct 8th at 19:00
Performance: What kind of Animal Are You?
What Kind of Animal Are You? is a bodily exploration of human animality by dance artist Matilda Aaltonen, sociologist Salla Tuomivaara, and sound designer Markus Tapio. Using both speech and non-verbal expressions of the body, the performance deconstructs, critiques, and invalidates the dualistic human-animal dichotomy and examines humanity thereafter.
Friday, Oct 10th at 19:00
Earth Talks- conversation: "Requiem at the Meat Counter: Animal Right Academy, Activism and Art."
The discussion examines the meeting points of art and nonhuman animals.The themes will be introduced and the discussion facilitated by Animal Rights Academy’s art curators dance artist Matilda Aaltonen and writer Laura Gustafsson.
Saturday, Oct 11th at 16:00
Performance and Earth Talks- conversations: Nature Untitled – Dancing in the oil silo, black box and shopping mall
Dancer Sofia Simola will perform fragments from Nature Untitled -triptych adapted into the gallery space. Choreographer Veli Lehtovaara will talk about the creative process as part of his doctoral research at the University of the Arts Helsinki. His research focuses on ecological poetics in dance and choreographic writing.
Sunday, Oct 12th at 16:00
Fabulous Cow Ladies- movie and Earth Talks- conversation: Inter-species Care
Visual artist Outimaija Hakala presents her artistic research on ways of expressing and taking into account other species of animals in the work of a visual artist. At the heart of the research is a forest gallery located in Pirkanmaa, parts of which are transformed into artworks that also appear in more traditional exhibition spaces. After this, there will be documentary filmmaker Mia Halme's movie Fabulous Cow Ladies. Following the film, the event will continue with a conversation that explores themes related to the relationships and care between the earth, humans, and other species, as well as art. In the discussion will be present Outimaija Hakala, Mia Halme and from the 'Fabulous Cow Ladies'-movie; Principal Specialist, Finnish Centre for Animal Welfare Satu Raussi, MSc in Veterinary Physiotherapy Heli Hyytiäinen, Docent, Small Animal Radiology Anu Lappalainen.
Fabulous Cow Ladies is a delightful film about three cows living in the forest. Grandmother Ilo, mother Muru, and Namu, born in the forest pasture, get to live a life worthy of cows, enjoying their freedom. The film is also a touching story about the cycle of life and community—the matriarchal herd called the Fabulous Cow Ladies, consisting of the three doctors who care for the cows and the cows themselves, where the women look after the cows and the cows look after the women.
Every grazing animal is a caretaker of nature—where grazing ends, natural values decline. The traditional grazing lands, known as meadows and pastures, have nearly disappeared, along with many plants, which affects the number of pollinators. One fifth of Finland’s cows never get to go outside the barn before being loaded onto the slaughter truck, even though forest pasture would be a cow’s natural habitat.
Monday Oct 13th at 19:00
Performance: Lithifications
In this event, which takes shape somewhere between a performance, a workshop and a lecture-like narrative, choreographer-dance artist Heli Keskikallio leads participants into moments and thoughts with mineral terrains and movements.
Tuesday Oct 14th at 17:00
Earth Talks- conversation: Telling different natural environments, phenomena, and living beings through photography.
In the conversation, photographic artists Anttoni Halonen, Kaisu Koivisto and Soile Voima share the backgrounds of their works and invite participants to engage in a conversation about the challenges and possibilities of photography in portraying more-than-human worlds. The discussion also takes place through the images themselves. Artist Leena Valkeapää will be present in the conversation.
Free admission to all events. Welcome!
Earth Talks is a series of conversations that explore the practices, questions, and starting points of artistic work and research from different perspectives.
The conversations are shared between human participants and, alongside them, concrete earth material, a pile of soil. The discussions take place in some form of relationship with the earth - in contact with, beside, or physically together with the soil.
