Friday 29 November, 18.00 – 22.30
Generaattori
Kauppakatu 36
87100 Kajaani
Pluriversal transmissions brings together a number of voices from different parts of the world to critically question extractivism in its many manifestations, from its workings in natural resource industries to its perhaps less obvious forms of extraction of memory, knowledge, labour, emotion. It is part of the workshop Pluriversal conversations: anti-/non-/post-extractivist culture, organised by Pluriversal Radio.
After each work, there will be dedicated time for discussion with the authors present. The works will be introduced in Finnish, and the discussion will be held in both English and Finnish.
Welcome to an evening of sound, image, text and movement at Generaattori. Entrance is free. Kahvi, tee ja pulla will be served. Please bring your own cup, thanks!
Programme:
Introduction to the event
Arja Renell, Purkuputki ja muita tarinoita Talvivaarasta/ Talvivaara video diaries 2016 – 2018:Viimeinen kalastus; Purkuputki, ja muita tarinoita Talvivaarasta; Acts of Sorrow
conversation with artist/break, 19:00 – 19:20
Pluriversal Radio, performance
Anja Örn, Tomas Örn & Fanny Carinasdotter, videoinstallation, Att använda landskap/Using landscapes
conversation with artists/break
Maija Lassila, film, Sakatti
Sophia Hagolani-Albov presents Global Extractivisms and Alternatives Initiative podcast
Ignacio Acosta, Litte ja Goabddá (Drones and Drums)
conversation with artists/break, 21:25 – 21:45
Kush Badhwar, film, Blood Earth
conversation with artist
Presentation descriptions and author information (in order of appearance):
Arja Renellis an artist and an architect based in Helsinki. Her work evolves mainly around ecological and environmental issues which are investigated through place specific projects and processes. Renell builds up multi layered bodies of work over long periods of time, often involving various research and voluntary organisations. She works with video, installation, events and performance, creating space for dialogue where different or conflicting histories, presents and futures coexist.
Renell’s work shows how complex the issues of ecological balance are, and how human interventions always have unforeseen consequences. Questions of how we should live and view ourselves in a rapidly changing global ecosystem, for which we are responsible for are strongly present in her work.
Pluriversal Radio is a collaborative practice of listening to land and all that lives there, and amplifying voices of resistance to extractivism and stories about livelihoods that do not imply exploitation of other bodies (human and other-than-human). In the places Pluriversal Radio live and work, their practices are rooted in solidarity with indigenous populations and local communities defending water, air and earth from the assault of resource industries hellbent on extracting land powers, blood and knowledges without reciprocity and consensuality. The Radio’s collaborators are today listening and voicing throughout the colonial borders of Fennoscandia and Sámi lands, Opaskwayak Cree First Nation (Turtle Island) and ex-Yugoslavia. This collaborative practice draws power from de-colonial, eco feminist, queer, anticapitalist, antifascist resistance, thoughts and actions. The workgroup consists of akcg (anna kindgren + carina gunnars), Opaskwayak Cree Alex Wilson, Elin Már Øyen Vister and mirko nikolić.
Using landscapes is a part of the Anja Örn, Tomas Örn and Fanny Carinasdotter’s ongoing investigation of the Aitik open-pit copper mine in Sakajärvi. The work collects voices connected to the mine in various ways. Knowledge, emotions, economics, and nature come together and push against each other in the dramatic landscape. The ‘voices’ are taken from interviews, news articles, informational films about Boliden, and the letters of Sakajärvi residents to the mining company, amongst other sources. Instead of following a single story with a definite ending, the artists allow the many voices to remain conflicting and multifaceted.
Using landscapes is an investigation of the intersections between industry and the landscape. An attempt to understand the endless beauty of the natural landscape and the vast size of the industry. Where does nature seize to be nature and where does the memory of the cultural landscapes end up?
Anja Örn, Tomas Örn and Fanny Carinasdotter have been collaborating for many years. So far the focus if their work has been Aitik, the the largest open pit copper mine in Sweden. Since 2016 they have annualy returned to the mine and the village Sakajärvi outside Gällivare. In 2017, they presented a first draft of “Using Landscape” during the conference “Creating the city, memory and participation” at Malmö University and then during a separate exhibition at Galleri Syster in Luleå.
In 2017 they were also invited by the Public Art Agency Sweden (Statens konstråd) to develop the project for the group exhibition “Breaking times – extracts from a future history” curated by Lisa Rosendahl in Luleå. In 2018, they have exhibited the work during the group exhibitions “With the Future Behind Us” curated by Joa Ljungberg and Santiago Mostyn at the Moderna museet in Stockholm, “Gemeinsam – Self organized artists of the north” coordinated by Gallery Syster at Glogau AIR in Berlin, “Streams of emotion, bodies of ore “curated by Lisa Rosendahl at Konsthall Trondheim.
Maija Lassila is doctoral candidate at University of Helsinki, doctoral programme of Political, societal and regional change. Lassila in her political ecological research focuses on mineral extractivism expansion into Lapland, in the nature/human ontology, and alternative knowledge worlds. She is visual artist with MFA from Helsinki’s Academy of Fine arts and uses a visual approach in a part of her thesis.
Sakatti is a two channel video installation and a collection of small painted pictures based on fieldwork and material filmed on Viiankiaapa swamp, Northern Finland in the summer 2016. Because of a large-scale mineral reserve found under the swamp, it is a site of intense mineral exploration. Sakatti is a poetic close-up journey into the swamp’s existence in the world of humans and nonhuman animals, multiple time scales and its overlapping meanings.
Extractivist policies and practices are deeply embedded globally and highly problematic for a viable human future. The Global Extractivisms and Alternatives (EXALT) Initiative draws together diverse critical analyses of the phenomena of global extractivisms and the myriad alternatives being actively pursued in both theory and practice. It is the intention of the EXALT Initiative to contribute to, expand, and deepen the concept of extractivism beyond the conventional usage.
The EXALT Initiative is committed to science popularization and communication. In support of this goal we have developed a podcast focused on the themes of extractivisms and alternatives. Our guests come from academia, activism, and lived experience. The format is a semi-structured conversation between the hosts and the guests. A new conversation will be posted on the last Friday of every month.
Sophia Hagolani-Albov, one half of the EXALT podcast hosting team, has been living and working in Finland for the last 6 years. She is deeply interested in the concept of intellectual extractivism and engages with a slow scientific practice (think slow food, but science). Sophia is super excited to be involved with the EXALT podcast and looks forward to sharing our guests with the listeners.
Ignacio Acosta’sLitte ja Goabddá [Drones and Drums] (2018) examines the use of drone technologies in the protest by activists and Sámi people against a mining exploration project Gállak in Jåhkåmåhkke (Jokkmokk), Norrbotten County, Sweden.
Gállak is one of the largest unexploited iron ore deposits in Europe. Beowulf Mining PLC has applied for a twenty-five-year exploitation concession of the area. A mining permit impact would have a massive impact on the fragile ecosystem and disrupt the reindeer migration path. If this happens, Sámi cultural life in the area would experience irreversible decline and with it the loss of valuable indigenous knowledge.
During several research visits, Ignacio Acosta met with activists and Sámi families living and working in the area threatened by the mines. Working in close collaboration with the Sámi, the project presents the importance of land and place and the anxiety that is felt within the region should the activists fail to halt the opening of a mine.
The project was commissioned by the Hasselblad Foundation and Valand Academy, Gothenburg University as part of Drone Vision: Warfare, Surveillance, Protest. Led by Dr. Sarah Tuck, the project explores the affective meanings of drone technologies in photography and human rights.
Ignacio Acosta is a Chilean-born, London-based artist and researcher working primarily with photography to explore geopolitical power dynamics around minerals, their geographies and historical narratives. His interconnected research projects involve extensive fieldwork, investigative analysis, visual documentation and critical writing on sites and materials of symbolic significance. Between 2012 and 2016, he completed a Ph.D at the University of Brighton, UK, from which his thesis The Copper Geographies of Chile and Britain: A Photographic Study emerged. The publication Copper Geographies (2018) has since been published by Editorial RM. He has recently exhibited work in Chile, Wales, Poland, Sweden, Germany, Spain and England. At the moment he is having a solo exhibition Tales from the Crust at Arts Catalyst, London.
Kush Badhwar has been working with Word Sound Power music collective on collecting voices of anti-mining resistance in. In August 2011, Word Sound Power journeyed to Kucheipadar village, Kashipur, Odisha and collaborated with indigenous artists who use music to resist the corporate mining of their homeland. Kashipur is rich in bauxite, a mineral that nourishes magnificent forests and fertile fields which are held sacred by the Konds. Bauxite is also the ore of aluminium, and since India’s economic liberalization policies of 1991, has been the subject of violent conflict between tribals, extractive industry, and the state. In Kashipur, a tribal-organized human rights movement emerged with music serving as a tool for mobilization and self-empowerment.
Kush Badhwar is a filmmaker interested in collaborative practice, improvised and informal political engagement and the ecology of sound and image across stretches of time and political change.
The event is supported by Routa Company (Kajaani) and two-year Kone Foundation-funded research project what do earths deeply want? (2017-19).