Photo: Niki Griller
Maria Huhmarniemi I am a Finnish artist and a teacher in applied visual arts and art education. In my work as a visual artist, I engage with questions concerning the North, multiculturalism and communality, as well as environmental issues such as the relationship between people and nature and environmental responsibility. I make use of old objects and textiles in my work, as well as recycled and natural materials and audio/visual recordings. In May 2016 I defended my doctoral thesis in which I studied how artists can participate in environmental politics through art. I live partly in Rovaniemi and partly in Muodoslompolo, which is small village in Northern Sweden. I am very active in developing applied visual arts in the field of Finnish contemporary art. I have been chairperson for the Artists´ Association of Lapland since 2012. I am also a member of the Finnish Bio-art Association, Artists´ Association Muu and an association called Pro Soveltavan taiteen tila ry. In the field of research I belong to the following networks: NACER, Sirene and InSEA.
In my work as a visual artist, I engage with questions concerning the North, multiculturalism and communality as well as environmental issues such as the relationship between people and nature and environmental responsibility. I make use of old objects and textiles in my work, as well as recycled and natural materials and audiovisual recordings such as photographs and interviews. I knit and crochet, collect and assemble, chat with people and document these chats. My works are installations. They are tied to space or place, whether in galleries or in the outdoors.
Art is, for me, a personal way of understanding the world. Working long-term on a project enables one to stop and think, while working with different materials provides opportunities for multisensory embodiment. On the other hand, the purpose of art is to have some sort of impact, and my works also intersects with the field of activist art.
Research and art are intertwined in my work. Background research is a prerequisite for my art and making it requires collecting materials. I am working on a doctorate with an artistic component. The topic of my research is integration of art, bioscience and eco-activism. In installations, which are part of my theses, I work in collaboration with biologists and other researchers in the natural science.
I think that there are ethical content and method in good art.
Hugo Peña Lagos is a Chilean Choreographer, Investigator and a Pedagogue in dance, a Researcher, BA in Dance from the Academia de Humanismo University; and with 5 years of Architecture at the Bio Bio University, Concepción, Chile.
University Teacher of Dance and Theatre career of the Faculty of Arts, Academia de Humanismo University (2007 – 2016). An Associate Researcher at the Latin American Aesthetics Research Center, Faculty of Music, University of Chile. Scholarship holder of the interdisciplinary laboratory MOVIMIENTO SUR, international platform for contemporary dance and performing arts for Latin America in the year 2012 and 2014, and collaborating in the year 2015.
An Artistic Director and a Creator of the Al Margen Project where he investigates the relation of the body, memory and architecture through interdisciplinary proposals, creating works that have participated in important Festivals and tours of Latin America
Participates as an interpreter and as a choreographer of the Espiral Dance Company and others Chilean companies and Choreographers
Kaisa Raatikainen I am a Finnish conservation biologist and a landscape ecologist, and my research deals with traditional rural biotopes, ie. species-rich meadows and wood-pastures. These pastoral and picturesque landscapes are threatened due to agricultural modernization. My interest is in how a deeper relationship between humans and nature could support the conservation of traditional rural biotopes – these habitats and landscapes cannot be preserved through set-aside protection. They need to be managed: usually this is done by low-intensity mowing or grazing. The management maintains high biodiversity in several species groups. But, such management isn’t economically profitable, and therefore most traditional rural biotopes and many of their species are already gone. So we need new tools and incentives in order to promote traditional rural biotopes and the many values (biological, cultural, intrinsic, economic) they host. – That’s the work side, and what else? I am very fond of science popularization. I have been writing a research blog since year 2013. And even more dearer to me is flamenco dancing which I have been doing since 2005, and the learning still continues.
iseasfinland 