8.-14.8. / 22.-26.11.2022
Turku

Matterlurgy (Helena Hunter and Mark Peter Wright) travelled to Seili in the summer of 2022; they then returned to Seili and Turku in the autumn of the same year to prepare for their exhibition, Field Casting, at Titanik Gallery in February 2023. A key part of the summer and autumn residencies involved researching, collecting material and producing sculptural works.

In August, Matterlurgy spent time in Seili making field recordings and interviews. They also organised a workshop titled Otolith Reading in collaboration with scientist Katja Mäkinen as part of the public event How do you know what you know? Exercises in Attentiveness on the island. In their conversation and practical demonstration about how scientists read climate data from the non-human world, Matterlurgy and Katja shared methods across art and science for listening with, and reading information in, the ear bone (otolith) of the Baltic herring.

In November, with help from Eero Merimaa and his sculpture students at Turku University of Applied Sciences, Matterlurgy cast the arms and hands of Professor Emeritus Ilppo Vuorinen in a position that he had repeated for decades whilst sampling plankton in the Baltic Sea. An alginate mould, made from ingredients that included brown algae, captured Ilppo’s field posture – an action he calls “throwing the line.” Once the mould was made, traditional plaster was poured into it. This took a few attempts and, on Ilppo’s request, was accompanied by the playing of Johnny Cash’s music whilst patiently waiting for the mould to dry.

In the exhibition, Field Casting, the sculpture was placed in relation to a looped film of Ilppo on a small boat as he sampled for plankton. The fluid action of his filmed body being frozen by the intersecting sculpture allowed the audience to reflect, close up, on the details, muscles and sinews of the scientist’s hands, which do not get included in conventional data sets or graphs.

Matterlurgy also worked on a second sculpture cast of Herring earbones (otoliths) from the otolith archive in Seili. Otoliths are approximately 3-5mm in size and are studied in Seili to understand the shifting conditions of the Baltic Sea and the implications on herring migration, population and physiology. In partnership with the Natural History Museum in London, Matterlurgy scanned these tiny pieces of bone, scaled them up to approximately 15 cm in length, and 3D printed them.

These 3D-printed ‘ears’ were lit by a red light and installed in the exhibition. The sculptures were accompanied by a sound work that combined interviews with Professor Marjut Rajasilta and Dr Katja Mäkinen discussing their research with herring otoliths, along with sounds from the lab and field recordings from the Baltic Sea.

Field Casting was commissioned and produced by CAA in collaboration with the Archipelago Research Institute (University of Turku) as part of the project Spectres in Change. Learn more about the Field Casting commission and the Field Casting exhibition.

9.-12.5. / 19.-26.5. / 2.-7.9.2022
Seili

Throughout 2022, FRAUD (Audrey Samson and Francisco Gallardo) visited Seili on several occasions to carry out parts of their multi-faceted project, Fields of May. In May, the duo took part in a production residency, which saw the construction of a communal seating area for the upcoming Witness Seminar event. Built from masts salvaged from the 19th century trade ship, the Sigyn, the structure makes reference to the present histories of the archipelago. FRAUD reflects that it “bear(s) witness to the transatlantic slave and timber trade as much as to the changing nature of Finnish forests.” The masts were transported from Turku to Seili by sea before being laid to rest horizontally outside the Archipelago Research Institute.

FRAUD returned in late May to host the Witness Seminar which saw a group of artists, biologists, a legal scholar and a fisherperson come together at the seating area – also referred to as ‘chair’ of the Witness Seminar – to discuss potential more-than-human legal ecologies and cosmologies. The event was structured following a format close to that of a witness seminar. FRAUD describes a witness seminar as “a punctual moment during which people with a specialised interest around a topic, issue of concern, or an event, gather and verbally exchange, discuss, and debate with the aim of advancing critical dialogue on the matter of address.” It began with the raising of a herring-inspired windsock on the institute’s flag pole, serving as reminder, as FRAUD puts it, to “follow the herring.”

The artists carried out their third and final visit to Seili in September 2022. Again, taking the format of a production residency, the visit provided FRAUD with an opportunity to bring their work on the island to a close. During their stay, they embedded salvaged seeds into the wooden structure, covered them with earth, and sealed them with a wood-patina treatment. It is hoped that, over time, the seeds will remain and grow in the soil bed created by the rotting wood. FRAUD reflects that this future garden of discarded botanical species is a collaboration with Lotta Petronella, “who salvaged some of the species from Seili’s Biodiversity Research Institute, along with herbarium specimens discarded by Turku University for no longer having ‘pedagogic value’.” Fields of May will remain on the island of Seili as a porous, permanent meeting place.

Read about the Fields of May commission on the CAA pages.

Visit the Fields of May online platform devised by FRAUD.

1.-10.11.2021
Seili & Turku

Matterlurgy (Helena Hunter and Mark Peter Wright) returned to Seili and Turku for a residency to continue the research began during their initial site visit and participation in the Spectres of Landings Retreat in spring 2019:

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During our recent residency on Seili Island we explored the relationship between data and the corporeal presence of the scientist within fieldwork. We often focus upon methods and practice exchange in our collaborations with scientists, so we enjoyed doing some hands-on (in the water) sampling of phytoplankton with Emeritus Professor Ilppo Vuorinen at the Archipelago Research Institute (University of Turku). Ilppo has been studying the Baltic Sea for years, he has a unique understanding of the area and its changes over the past three decades. We had some incredible exchanges and discussions with him on boats and in labs. These focused on the bodily impact of fieldwork; the methods and tools of science and art; the need for imaginary and ethical strategies of communication in relation to issues of climate change.

We also met Emeritus Professor Marjut Rajasilta and Postdoctoral Researcher Katja Mäkinen, who study the biology of the Baltic herring at the Archipelago Research Institute. We spoke about their practices of fieldwork, how scientists  leave secret messages in their data, as well as the role herring plays in registering salinity changes of the Baltic Sea.

Through both interactions, our research has become more tuned. We are fascinated by traditional scientific sampling methods (boat/net/microscope) and the tacit knowledge that builds outside the formal conventions of digital data. Given the inevitable shift towards autonomous remote sensing byous we are considering what will be lost and what might be gained in the movement from muscle to machine. What happens when the labour and production of data (field practices) becomes further abstracted from the spectrogram or graph?

In 2022, we will return to Seili to do more practice and methods exchange, and plan to create a series of artworks across sculpture, digital 3D renderings, sound and film that fold these encounters into a project we call: Field Casting.

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Field Castings is commissioned by CAA as part of Spectres in Change, funded by Kone Foundation. The work will be presented during 2022 in Seili and in Turku as part of an exhibition and public programme in collaboration with the Archipelago Research Institute.

Matterlurgy presented work-in-progress in an exhibition at Titanik Gallery in Turku in the autumn 2021 in collaboration with Taru Elfving. More information here.

6.-9.7. / 14.-19.9. / 6.-9.11.2021
Seili

FRAUD (Audrey Samson and Francisco Gallardo) returned to Seili a number of times during 2021. In July, Midsummer Mast was dismantled in Turku and the structure was floated along the waterways in the Archipelago, in the ‘traditional’ fashion, to the island of Seili. In September, FRAUD witnessed the ongoing experiments with the flora on the island, informing their collaboration with artist Lotta Petronella to incorporate a critical feminist herbarium in their new work Fields of May.

In the autumn FRAUD began their collaboration with the carpenter and boat builder Joel Simberg, based in Turku Archipelago, to refashion the museum ship Sigyn’s old masts and deck planks into an outdoor public sculpture. They will salvage the work Midsummer Mast, presented in Fiskars (2020) and in Turku (2021), to create Fields of May, a semi-permanent installation at the Archipelago Research Institute’s campus in Seili:

“Fields of May will act as an arena for ritual and discussion. The structure itself explores juridical & environmental maypole traditions, aiming to foster an inquiry into the reach of the ‘Blue bio-economy’ in the Baltic Sea. In the Turku Archipelago maypoles were bound to maritime trade and in the 19th Century the appearance of maypoles in the area demonstrated the prowess of the village’s shipbuilding capacity. As such Fields of May will catalyse a space for congregation and conversation. Over the years it will slowly decompose.”

Fields of May is commissioned by CAA as part of Spectres in Change, funded by Kone Foundation. It will be inaugurated in the spring 2022 in Seili as part of an exhibition and a public programme in collaboration with the Archipelago Research Institute.

More information on Midsummer Mast and its journey to Seili here.

8.-11.6. / 5.-7.7. / 22.-25.8.2021
Seili & Jungfruskär

Arja Renell returned to Seili visiting also other islands in the Archipelago Sea National Park during the summer 2021. Working closely in collaboration with the Metsähallitus Wildlife Services biologists, she followed their research on the impacts of summer grazing as part of the ongoing meadow restoration work.

In Seili, Renell observed the inventory of beetle species by conservation biologist Sampsa Malmberg and Heli Vainio during which several rare species were discovered, including Chrysolina analis (kärsämökuoriainen), which was last sighted on the island 33 years ago. She also took part on a trip to Jungfruskär with the conservation biologists Maija Mussaari, Kukka Kyrö and Jessica Rapp to monitor the meadow restoration work and inventory of plants growing on this unique remote island, where several rare biotopes co-exist and are carefully maintained.

During her stays in Seili, she also got to dive deeper into the longterm research on Baltic herring, guided by researcher Katja Mäkinen at the Archipelago Research Institute.

Renell’s field work in 2021 was part of the project Ecology of Change that revisits the exhibition Contemporary Art Archipelago, realised in the Turku 2011 European Capital of Culture programme a decade ago. The project is supported by the Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland.

20.-22.5. / 29.6.-2.7. / 10.-13.9.2021
Seili

Kalle Hamm returned to Seili for a series of short residencies in the spring and summer 2021 to further observe and record the seasonal cycle of the plants he is working with in the project The New Pangaea. The whole Band of Weeds spent a few days together on the island in the autumn to prepare for their concert planned for the summer 2022.

The New Pangaea is commissioned by CAA as part of the Spectres in Change project, supported by Kone Foundation, and will culminate in public events and the launch of a publication in 2022. Band of Weeds will also publish an LP as part of the work.

Visit the project online to listen to the plants in Seili: The New Pangaea

19.-21.5. / 15.-18.06. / 27.-29.07. / 3.-6.8. 2020
Seili

Kalle Hamm visited Seili first in the summer and autumn 2019, making observations and recordings of the flora on the island. In spring and summer 2020 he continued working with the plants in Seili for his new work-in-progress New Pangaia, in dialogue with the biologist Jasmin Inkinen at the research station. The other members of the Band of Weeds also made their first visits to the island.

“At first, I concentrated on sea relicts, pioneer species of ecological succession, invasive species, and species that are spreading further north due to climate change. Now I am paying more attention to the so-called weeds that have a longer and more complex relationship with humans.”
Kalle Hamm

Read more:
Lecture: Spectres in Change: Art and Science Research of the Archipelago Sea
Spectres of Landings II
Kalle Hamm and Saara Ekström in Seili

23.-31.5.2020
Seili

Saara Ekström continued to film the meadows of Seili during the summer 2020, focusing her camera this time on the sheep grazing on the island. As she writes:

“the meadow is a borderline sanctuary between the wild and the cultivated, where nature and the cultural landscape co-exist. On the island a small flock of eight sheep are busily grazing the seaside meadows, maintaining these rich and diverse habitats for the insects and plants that thrive in them. The sheep are brought to the island in early spring and they stay until late autumn. While left to their own devices, they widen their territory from the sunny meadows to the old windswept forests, where they find cooler spots and dig sleeping places between tree roots.

The sheep seem to go through a transformation, from domestic into something autonomous, integrating into the ecologies of their surroundings. Likewise, the 200-year-old cherrytree orchard appears to slowly blend in with the forest. In the spring the orchard emits a strange kind of music, like a polyphonic choir of insect wings, as thousands of pollinators swarm around the fragrant blossoms.”

Read more:
Beacon
Meadow-exhibition
Saara Ekström and Kalle Hamm in Seili
Earth Rights-exhibition