Aboagora Pre-Symposium: Burning Questions
16.-17.8.2021
Archipelago Centre Korpoström
The Aboagora Pre-Symposium Burning Questions brought together researchers in the arts, humanities, and sciences around burning questions of the world on fire today at the Archipelago Centre Korpoström on Korpo island in the Turku archipelago.
The programme was structured around talks, walks and workshops addressing the impacts of global warming on the Archipelago Sea Biosphere area, its marine ecosystem and cultural contexts. Through the prism offered by the site itself, a plurality of perspectives, and multisensory approaches, the discussions focused on a range of ecological and societal phenomena, such as marine and island meadows, marine heatwaves, migrations, mitigation and adaptation.
The pre-symposium offered a momentary retreat from the conventions of boundary-making between disciplines and epistemologies in order to nurture an ecology of practices attentive to the multispecies communities affected by the raging fires – literal and metaphorical – in the present. The aim was to reflect together also on what fuels our journeys, research, and conversations: How to draw together diverse knowledges, skills and wisdoms needed to feed the flame of sustainable transformations? What kinds of narratives for alternative futures might arise out of the ashes of past fires?
At the ABOAGORA symposium in Turku (18–20 August 2021), the participants shared their experiences of the pre-symposium and perspectives from architecture, art history, chemistry, ecology, film, future studies, literature, marine archaeology, pedagogy, and performance. The multidisciplinary group consisted of Camila da Rosa Ribeiro, Jenni Vauhkonen, Kirsikka Paakkinen, Laura Maria Saari, Riikka Armanto, Sachin Kochrekar, Ulla Kommonen, and Yoshimasa Yamada.
The pre-symposium research retreat was directed by curator and researcher Taru Elfving (CAA Contemporary Art Archipelago) and organised in collaboration with the Archipelago Centre Korpoström. The programme included presentations and workshops by Katja Bonnevier and the Korpoström Kid’s Lab (Archipelago Sea Biosphere Reserve), Christian Pansch-Hattich and Christopher Boström (Åbo Akademi University), and artists Sandra Nyberg (Barefoot Path) and Renja Leino (AARK Archipelago Art Residency in Korpo).
ABOAGORA is a joint effort by the University of Turku, Åbo Akademi University, the Åbo Akademi University Foundation, and the Arts Academy of Turku University of Applied Sciences, supported by Kone Foundation and The Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland.
More information here
