Forest as a war victim is conversation between two students of the Academy of Fine Arts which share common interest with the environmental history of Finnish forests.

Joonas Pulkkinen is second year MA student at the The Praxis Master’s Programme in Exhibition Studies focused on art curating and mediating. In his essay “Logged, cutted, torned, crashed, burnt, destroyed” written as a part of the course Pulkkinen makes open questions based on Finnish Defence Forces archieves during II World War. Pulkkinen researches why destroyed forest has been a part of the documentation of Finnish Defence Forces photographers and how those photos have been described literally. Pulkkinen tries to understand the need of the documentation and also contexts around the condition of the Finnish forest before the war and in the post-war context of Finnish societal modernization and industrialization project.

Pulkkinen has invited another MA student from Academy of Fine Arts, Lauri Lähteenmäki to conversation related mentioned themes and Lähteenmäki’s own work and practice. In his MFA exhibition in Kuvan Kevät 2022 Lähteenmäki’s photo book and exhibition Vihreän kullan kuume (Green Gold Fever, 2022). Lähteenmäki’s photo books is based on a media data collected from public news sources regarding the debate on forest use in Finland.

Joonas’ project was created in conjunction with the IHME Helsinki Commission 2022 course entitled Learning from Doubt. This project will be showcased in November. Follow this blog for more updates.

In my project “The Road and I” my main focus is on change and subjectivity in experiencing a location; I have explored a relationship to a place while years and kilometers pass. It is a small and subjective display of how one’s relationship with a place, people, things, and life is changing in long term, in a foreign cultural and societal settings – and how the individual is changing along.

“The Road and I” is an autoethnographic narrative taking place in the Land of Smiles, where I have spent several years with my camera in different periods of time, in different roles in various communities within ten years. I believe that similar, and at the same time unique stories, could be found and told from anywhere in the world. I cannot say, what and who has changed and how much within these years – me, my gaze or Thailand – but I believe this is as subjective truth as any.

In my work I combine multiple different techniques of photography to assist in sharing the story – the stories. Originally, the pictures have been placed in ten different envelopes to benchmark the ten years being displayed in this work.

Kaisa’s project was created in conjunction with the IHME Helsinki Commission 2022 course entitled Learning from Doubt. This project will be showcased in November. Follow this blog for more updates.

The poem.

The audio tape.

The former child soldier.

The artwork is just and about the read poem from a former child soldier.

Zagros’ project was created in conjunction with the IHME Helsinki Commission 2022 course entitled Learning from Doubt. This project will be showcased in November. Follow this blog for more updates.

Island of Birds. Uunisaari is a short film by Emma de Carvalho. It explores how birdlife on the Uunisaari island in Helsinki has been affected by climate change. Through a conversation with her grandmother, as well as her own video footage and research, Emma explores what memory, evidence, crimes, and archives mean on this island. The accompanying text opens up Emma’s reflections about the process of creating the film.

Emma’s project was created in conjunction with the IHME Helsinki Commission 2022 course entitled Learning from Doubt. This project will be showcased in November. Follow this blog for more updates.

Finnish landscapes have been profoundly shaped by extensive peatland drainage. In this project I try to understand what drainage has meant by focusing on disturbed watery relations. As ditches have been dug in the name of progress, water in and around mires has been rearranged in dangerous ways. In these troubled waters, new things are moving, new processes unfolding, and existing relations of care and survival come under threat.

Anni’s project was created in conjunction with the IHME Helsinki Commission 2022 course entitled Learning from Doubt. This project will be showcased in November. Follow this blog for more updates.

Scene of a secret is a performance about the contradiction of loving a criminal. Performance explores how the perceived opposites of disappointment and gratitude live in one body. Performance is based on butoh practice.

Sonja’s project was created in conjunction with the IHME Helsinki Commission 2022 course entitled Learning from Doubt. This project will be showcased in November. Follow this blog for more updates.

October 21 (Friday) Time: 15.00-16.00 (Helsinki), 14.00-15.00 (CET), online

Contributors: Iris Borowy, Grace Harrison, Sabine Lettmann, Tariro Kamuti, Carlos Miret Fernandéz, Viktor Pál

For ZOOM Link Register HERE the day before the event. You will receive the zoom link an hour before the program begins.

This book launch will consider the recent publication “Social and Cultural Aspects of the Circular Economy Toward Solidarity and Inclusivity”

This collection of essays brings together discussions arguing that the circular economy must be linked to society and culture in order to create a viable concept for remodelling the economy. Covering a diverse range of topics and regions, including cities and living, food and human waste, packaging and law, fashion, design and art, this book provides a multi-layered examination of circularity. Transitioning to a circular economy, reducing resource input and waste, and narrowing material and energy loops are becoming an increasingly important targets to combat decades of unsustainable models of consumption. However, they will require a significant shift in social and cultural thinking and these dimensions have not yet been factored into policy debates and frameworks. While recognising the key role of individual consumers and their behaviours, the book goes beyond this singular perspective to provide equal focus on institutional and political structures as necessary drivers for real change. Social and Cultural Aspects of the Circular Economy argues for a social and solidarity economy (SSE) to combine individual actions with a wider cultural shift. It will be an important read for scholars, researchers, students and policy-makers in the circular economy, waste studies, consumption and other environmentally focused social sciences.

Organizers: Päivi Maunu, Mirimari Väyrynen

(For Finnish text please scroll down)

The campfire catering is discussions and actions that flow between art and science.

Place: Harakka Island, Helsinki

Time: October 16

The campfire catering is discussions and actions that flow between art and science. Let´s cook together in Harakka Island! We are looking for environmentally conscious ways of being and working. Bring out awareness and rituals, knowledge and theory by experimenting with concepts and views and humor and sluggish. The meaningfulness of the time spent together, the sharing of information and the shaping of culture produce activity, activism. 

Practicalities:

We get together in Harakka island at 13.10. There is a boat leaving  at 13 pm from Ullanlinna pear next to the café  Ursula. Please bring your own cup. Vegan food ingredients are offered by ContemporarySOTKU. Registration in advance and possible food allergies are asked by sending an email to contemporarysotku@gmail.com before 15.10.2022. There are 13 places available.

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Nuotiokattaus on taiteen-tieteen välillä virtaavia keskusteluja ja tekoja. Kokataan yhdessä Harakan saarella! Etsimme ympäristöhuomaavaisia tapoja olla ja työskennellä. Houkuttelemme esiin tietämystä ja rituaaleja, tietoa ja teoriaa käsitteiden ja näkemysten hahmottamiseksi kokeilllen ja huumorilla ja verkkaisesti. Yhdessä vietetyn ajan merkityksellisyys, tiedon jakaminen ja kulttuurin muokkaaminen tuottavat toimintaa, aktivismia.

Tiedot: 

October 11 (Tuesday) 15.00-16.30), University of Helsinki, Porthania 224, Yliopistonkatu 3

Annette Arlander, University of the Arts Helsinki, Academy of Fine Arts

Karoliina Lummaa, University of Turku

Olga Cielemecka, University of Eastern Finland

For ZOOM Link Register HERE the day before the event. You will receive the zoom link an hour before the program begins.

In this multivoice conversation, artist Annette Arlander, literary scholar Karoliina Lummaa, and forest philosopher Olga Cielemecka talk about plant humanities and their experiments with performing and thinking with topics such as vegetation, non-human agency, and plant resilience. Participants are invited to join the discussion by sharing and nurturing their ideas with others. During our get-together, we will also discuss possible networking opportunities in the future.

After the event (16.45-18.00), we will hold a ‘Playful planting’ narrative game to consider the role of playfulness, imagination, and story-telling in the emergent strategies for living together in times of climate emergency and biodiversity loss.

The event is open to everyone interested in plants and vegetal being in artistic practice and research, the humanities, and beyond, as well as plant-ivists and students.

The Helsinki Environmental Humanities Hub and associated global partners are now inviting proposals for online and hybrid events, interventions, projects, actions to be included in the globally focused Environmental Humanities Month in November 2022.

The main goal of the Environmental Humanities Month is to raise awareness about the humanities and social sciences aspects of circularity and humanity’s shift to sustainability by targeting a global audience via scientific and artistic interdisciplinary cross-pollination, and by using local knowledge as well as languages beyond English to amplify vulnerable and marginalized voices of environmental humanities across the globe. 

Thus for the 2022 Environmental Humanities Month organizers invite submissions to be submitted by 21 August, 2022.

What are we looking for? 

The first Environmental Humanities Month was organized in November 2021 and it included some live events and mostly hybrid and online events. Nearly 30 contributors created over 10 different projects and engaged over 500 participants from four continents. 

Building on the success of the first environmental humanities month, organizers are now soliciting a wide range of humanities and social sciences perspectives on circularity and sustainability to be presented and debated jointly with actors from the arts, civil society, and sciences arenas. Perspectives will be included from a very wide range of humanities perspectives as diverse as critical plant studies, discard studies, and energy humanities, via anthropology, gender studies, history, indigenous studies, literature, philosophy, posthumanities studies and the arts widely interpreted. Organizers encourage contributors to create new collaborations with the actors outside their respective disciplines in order to allow activists’, artists’, and scientists’ perspectives to converse and blend. 

By doing so, the second Environmental Humanities Month aims at planning, organizing and implementing a celebration of diverse environmental humanities that will pay particular attention to confront systems of privileges and oppression and work toward a more inclusive and solidar as well as sustainable future.

Thus, organizers welcome a wide range of scientific, artistic, and blended; live, hybrid and online events, interventions, projects, actions, exhibitions, walks, tours, lectures, MOOC, media premieres during the envhum month of November 2022. 

For more information on the envhum aspects of inclusivity and solidarity kindly refer to the recent publication: https://blogs.helsinki.fi/environment/2022/06/19/toward-solidarity-and-inclusivity/

What do we offer? 

Organizers of the Environmental Humanities Month offer to work with you to develop your contribution for the Environmental Humanities Month as well as will disseminate information about the projects via social media e.g. @helsinkienvhum twitter, @HelsinkiEnvhum Facebook, and through a wide network of partner information channels globally. Unfortunately, the Environmental Humanities Month 2022 project is all done by voluntary work. Thus, we are unable to offer honoraria and costs reimbursement for contributors this year, but we hope this will change in the future. 

How can you apply?

Please send your page long contribution synopsis (or relevant weblink plus brief description) and your short CV to organizers at viktor.pal@helsinki.fi  by Monday, 21 August 2022. 

Contributors will be informed by the end of August about further steps.