LAAVU : Warmth in Motion
Multimedia Installation
Oulu Art Museum , Finland
16.10.2026 - 14.02.2027
The work takes the form of a Laavu installation, inspired by the different Laavus where I met weekly with the Työtoiminta group, and especially by the Praavan ranta Laavu, which moves on itself. The Laavu became a way to think about adaptation through something simple and lived. You move within it depending on the wind, the rain, the snow, or because you want to see the landscape differently. It shelters you, but it also keeps you connected to what surrounds you. That movement, between protection and openness, became important to me.
The installation holds traces of all the experiences we shared together. Walks, conversations, workshops, swimming, sauna time, and the Luonto Choir that we created collectively. But also quieter moments: sitting together, listening, resting, being outside. I spent time with people just being there, witnessing, experiencing their daily lives alongside them. We became friends. I stayed over, became part of the walls. We held space for one another.
The Ii-joki river became central to the work and to my understanding of the place. I spent time in it, on it, beside it, talking about it with people and observing the colours it carried through different seasons and different lights. The river felt alive in a way that constantly reminded me that landscapes are never still. They hold memory, movement, and change all at once.
With the Työtoiminta group, we met every week. Slowly, through repetition and trust, the work grew out of these encounters. We spoke about our bodies, about tiredness, about limitations, about what nature needs and what we need ourselves. The project was never about observing from a distance. It came from being together over time.
I also spent time with the primary school pupils in Jakkukylä, where the children showed me the bridge that had been built so they could cross the water independently during the summer instead of waiting for a boat. In winter, the frozen river becomes the crossing itself. The landscape changes the way people move, depend on each other, and adapt. I kept thinking about how adaptation already exists within everyday life, within seasonal knowledge and collective care.
The photographs in the installation speak about resilience, but also about trying to hold onto something fragile. They carry a grief for a time that is still here but already changing. A nostalgia for the present moment.
Inside the Laavu, the video is placed where the grill would normally be. As you sit inside and turn to look at the different parts of the installation, the video follows your movement. You have to adjust your body, reposition yourself, adapt your way of seeing. I wanted the body to become part of the work itself, part of the landscape of adaptation.
This installation exists to witness a time. To make space for the present. To hold space for people, for uncertainty, for grief, for care.
I am deeply grateful for the time we spent together in Ii, for the generosity of the people who welcomed me into their lives, and for everything we shared while trying to understand what we are doing here together.
Humans are extremely fragile, just like the nature that surrounds them. The work of adaptation cannot happen separately. It has to happen hand in hand. There is no hierarchy. One cannot exist without the other. For me, there is no sustainability without care, and there is no care without humans being part of the conversation.
Film photography from residency