The sea does not surrender as object. I spent a week in Korpo, AARK residence. The sea has been my artistic research subject. The sea invites you to the beach and to the very border, where the water and the stones gently rub against each other. The sea is by no means a distant friend. Last summer, the sea ate my phone, with lead my to retreat the social media for some time. Apparently, the sea has not changed its ways. Once again the sea took his son in close embrace and gave me a wet kiss.
Meri ei antaudu objektiksi. Olen viettänyt viikon Korppoossa, Aark-residenssissä. Täällä on mahtava energia! Meri on ollut tutkimuskohteenani. Meri kutsuu rannalle ja ihan siihen rajalle, jossa vesi ja kivet hankaavat toisiaan. Meri ei ole mitenkään etäinen ystävä. Viime kesänä meri söi minulta puhelimen, jonka myötä päädyin jatkamaan taiteellista työskentelyäni JA some-paastoa. Meri ei ole muuttanut tapojaan. Jälleen meri otti poikansa läheiseen märkään syleilyyn. Kiitos Renja ja Benkku vieraanvaraisuudesta, ja kutsusta käyttämään tätä tilaa.
I am told that in Finland November is known as the death month. Strange that I came here with a theme of Odysseus and the sirens in mind, as I had recently heard a piece of music composed by Swedish Anders Hillborg on this theme. Here on one of two large rocks: Korppoo and only 800m across to Nauvo. Here by the deep and narrow channel that allows huge ships to pass through to Turku.
What would this myth hold for me in my time here?
I had returned to AARK after being here in June for a month… midsummer month, long sun-filled days, a quiet contemplative time, seemingly far away from Covid-19…
The summer residency was spacious, meditative, spontaneous - a surprise collaboration with the other resident artist, ‘Before Our Eyes’
In the studio, flowing freely with the ink-drawing videos I was discovering… following the arising and passing of color on paper… creating rituals by the sea and up at the labyrinth in nearby Nauvo…
Now returning to AARK in the darkest month, the ink drawings emerging as light in the darkness…
Arriving on the first night the ark in the garden is joined by a new ship made by Benkku… funnels lit by candles and fairy lights twinkling in the portholes….
A few days later, I make a sound collage of the tale of Odysseus using spoken word and Sirens music… and sharing it with the other artists and Renja and Benkku there follows a discussion on what are today’s sirens… politics, fame, the restless pursuit of ungraspable happiness any which way…
And what are the artist’s sirens?
I have bones with me, reindeer bones found walking in Lapland, milky white and smooth as ivory… strange how I have also come with an injury from Lapland to my knee… my knee keeps locking and is forcing me to be still…
What must die under the spell of the sirens? What are the bones I must relinquish? Odysseus is tied to the mast of the ship so he doesn’t succumb to their song and stop his journey… ahh but he can still listen to their beautiful song… the song of impermanence… the song of transformation…that brings him home to soul…
I decide to take a boat trip… the Fiskö… arrange to join it at 7.30 am… I arrive in the dark… the dock is empty…
No signs of life… I wait… I record sounds of water lapping another boat moored on the second dock… then after a while… the sound of engines… the Fiskö appears out of the gloom…
By the time we set off, a bright sunlit morning is upon us and a flat calm sea… Fiskö weaves its way through the pattern of islands and skerries, stopping at one island to drop off the only car on board and to take on a small tractor on another island, then back to Korppoo. Islands come and go before my eyes… are they moving, or are we? The skerries are so alluring in the sunshine…if only, if only…
Back in the studio, more ink drawings in white on black, emerging from the darkness…
the two other artists in the residence are making prints listening to Peter Grimes… Molly had invited us the day before to join her in returning the artist’s book she had made from algae back to the Baltic. As we tore the pages into bite size pieces and cast them off from the shoreline, it was not long before little fish could be seen nibbling on the fragments… Towards the end of my stay the weather is turning drizzly in the November gloom, I watch out for mist in the mornings… then the wind starts up… looking out to sea, I hardly can believe my eyes… the wind has whipped up white horses on the wave tops but what’s this? A 20metre high shape made from sea spume racing across the sea’s surface in the distance - running as if on legs, or like some urgent dancer propelled perpetually forward - ephemeral, ghostly, unforgettable.
I very much looked forward to AARK as a place to rest and recoup, which didn't necessitate a great deal of social activity. Choosing to be alone with only my art for company felt liberating and energizing in some way; the silence was magical.
I visited Korpo at the tail end of 2017, arriving on a cold, damp December day, where I was welcomed warmly by Renja, Benkku, and an otherwise empty studio/apartment. It's strange to look back at the stretch of time between leaving Finland, and the present day, where we are only just now emerging from a long second lockdown brought on by everyone's favourite uninvited houseguest - COVID19.
It's become a tired cliché to bemoan the various grievances that have come with 2020. Here in Australia, we watched in horror as much of the country burned away during a ferocious summer fire season as our leaders found new and inventive ways to direct the blame at anything other than global warming.
There was the freak explosion in Lebanon, the eroding of civil liberties in Hong Kong, the glacial lurch of Brexit, continued protests across the US over Black Lives Matter, and the ongoing circus that is the Trump administration, not to mention the floods, plane crashes, hurricanes, oil spills, train derailments, earthquakes, and other disasters that would in any other year register as more than just a blip on the news cycle.
Through all of this, I can't say that making art has felt easy or comfortable. Our second lockdown lasted for 111 days - the majority of which came with harsh stay-at-home restrictions and curfews. If the current reopening strategy holds, we will return to a semblance of normalcy in late November, after spending a total of 235 days under one restriction or another (masks will continue to be mandatory in public spaces).
I am fortunate to live in a household with enough space to stretch my legs, and with room for a dedicated workspace. Many of my friends and colleagues are not so fortunate, and it was sad to see them confined to smaller spaces, or be left with few opportunities for human interaction.
Throughout lockdown, I couldn't help but think back to my time at AARK, as well as various other residencies from the past. There is a strange similarity between seeking out such programs in far-flung places, and my current state of enforced home isolation. Both scenarios involve seclusion and social-distancing, but for wholly different reasons and costs.
Seeking out residencies always came with so much anticipation and excitement, and it was a joy to be allowed space and time just to think about my practice. Meanwhile, back at home, with an interminable stretch of time ahead of me to do little else, I quickly lost the drive and motivation to work. As more time passed, it became more difficult to make anything at all; and the less I made, the more my guilt would build up.
Through all of this, I can't say that making art has felt easy or comfortable. Our second lockdown lasted for 111 days - the majority of which came with harsh stay-at-home restrictions and curfews.
Apart from the occasional visiting artist, open studio, or Renja excitedly taking me out to forage for mushrooms, my time at AARK was quiet and contemplative. I had just come from several long stints at residencies in Shetland and Norway, broken up by travel in between. I was emotionally spent, and I very much looked forward to AARK as a place to rest and recoup, which didn't necessitate a great deal of social activity. Choosing to be alone with only my art for company felt liberating and energizing in some way; the silence was magical.
During the most restrictive stages, we were only allowed to leave the house for four reasons: 1) work or school, if unable to do so from home; 2) to purchase essential supplies; 3) for health reasons or to provide care, and 4) for up to one hour of daily exercise. We were restricted from visiting other households, and could not travel beyond a 5km radius of our homes. Schools, restaurants, cafes, retail, places of worship, and most other non-essential services closed, and a nightly curfew between 8 pm and 6 am was enforced.
These measures appear to have worked; we are now only recording one or two new cases daily, while a second wave seems to have overrun parts of Europe, and the general state of things in the US continues to worsen. I held onto the stubborn belief that these lockdowns were a necessary evil and that things would be easier when we emerged on the other side. However, I felt neither liberated nor energised with these thoughts in mind as I sat in my all-too-familiar home studio.
At the start of the year, when the coronavirus was merely a rumour, I was busy booking flights back up north. I had been accepted to a small residency in the town of Uummannaq, in central-western Greenland, and I had to keep pinching myself in case it really was some long extended dream sequence. Surely enough, the shadow of COVID grew and became more tangible, and a few months later, I was contacted by the residency to say that my place would be postponed indefinitely. I can't help but wonder how things might have turned out differently if instead of bouncing off the walls at home, I was bouncing around a tiny village on the other side of the world instead. Whatever I could have made there, I suppose we'll never know.
I look back on AARK with great fondness. When such residencies were readily accessible to me, I knew I wanted them to be a constant throughout my working life. I just can't describe the creative energy that comes from being dropped into a new and unfamiliar place armed only with time and a backpack full of paint and brushes, but that all feels behind me now. I wouldn't consider a solo artist residency as being high on the list of ways to effectively spread the virus, but for the foreseeable future, I am bound within the borders of my state and country (even if I can now travel beyond my 5km bubble).
I will dream and think about AARK - of that musty basement sauna, of the barefoot path (either cold and damp, or caked in fresh snow), of Renja's unbridled joy watching slow passing ships, of the frigid grey water lapping against the rocks, and of feeling perfectly content in my little Finnish home - until my next adventure.
Many of the artist that have been in our residency during these years, are right now having important shows around the world. Here you can discover some of them.
Marco Dessardo, AARK artist 2019
The Marco Dessardo is having an exhibition in Brussels right now: Plans Anti-Dérive, Quadriennale de la Fuite. Some of the works in that exhibition were created while his residency at AARK. He was here in 2019 as a part of the Between Island project. You can read about that project in the issue N26 of Korpo Bladet.
Link to Dessardo´s webpage: http://dessardo.com/
Chris Sheridan, AARK artist 2019 coming back in 2021
Chris Sheridan was here in 2019 and have the intention to come back in the fall 2021 together with his wife and artist Kate (if the conditions allow them). Right now Chris has a solo show: Rediscovering Silence: A solo show of new paintings inspired by a recent art residency in the Finnish Archipelago.
You can read about the genesis of that show in our Work In Progress Artist Blog here.
Link to Chris Sheridan Webpage: SheridanArt
Molly Balcom Raleigh, AARK artist 2020
Molly Balcom Raleigh was here with her family in the summer 2020. She has just published a book about the Baltic sea: Baltic Sea book - Iltämerikirja. You can find more information about the book here.
Link to Molly´s webpage: mollybalcomraleigh.com
Lilli Haapala, AARK artist 2019 and board member.
Lilli Haapala, artist in residency in 2019 and AARK board member is having an exhibition in Aboa Vetus & Ars Nova until the 8.11.2020: Blues
You can find more information about the exhibition in the museum´s webpage here
"The newest installation from artist Lilli Haapala, titled Blues, is part of her multiyear project where she examines the concept of utopia from different viewpoints. Haapala is fascinated with the birth process of dreams, and the relationship between impressions and reality".
Link to Lilli´s webpage: www.lillihaapala.com