Landvættir in the Anthropocene. 2019

The Saari Residence. Kone Foundation. Mynämäki Mansion, Southwest Finland

Landvættir are ‘land spirits’ that have existed in various guises throughout northern Europe for over 30,000 years. Landvættir are entities said to protect and promote the flourishing of the specific places where they live.

Similarly to Landvaettir, Hyperobjects are easy to imagine and difficult to rationalize. Hyperobjects, such as global warming, plastic, and radioactivity are so massively distributed in time and space as to transcend spatiotemporal specificity. By definition they operate quite comfortably in the territory of spirit and philosophy, while their tangible influence on ecologies remains as objective as science.

This project continues practice-led research into the relationships between humanity and environment and were created with funding from the Kone Foundation at the Saari Residency in March and April of 2019. It revisits the Landvættir as a lens to view Hyperobjects in the context of the Anthropocene. It explores the subject position of the non-human and the abject positioning of nature by conceptually removing the nature/culture binary at their intersection. Through sculpture, digital photography/ cinematography; found objects are presented as subjects to paradoxically invite a questioning of the prevailing anthropocentric worldview, questioning ‘whose nature?’

Inspired by the intersection of the history of natural science and myth, post-humanism and ecological philosophy it collaborates with chance and phenomena to suggest contemporary stories of nature and place.

Similarly to an ecological survey, actively walking and observing within nature in South-Western Finland formed the root of the project. Driven by both research and aesthetics, specimen objects were collected, forming the components for the assemblage sculptures and the subjects for the still life compositions and cinemagraphs.

Evoking the intangible; the cinemagraphs consist of found object assemblages which were collected from natural spaces and filmed on location in the surrounds. The Still life assemblages are similarly constructed, and photographed under controlled lighting in studio conditions.