Contextualization 4
ARTIST BOOK
I graduated as an architect in January 2021 in Tampere, and since then, until I moved to Oslo in August 2023, I worked in two different architecture offices designing new apartment buildings and writing historical surveys of buildings to be torn down. My experience as a practicing architect made me realize how wastefully the privileged Finnish society is using our natural resources.
I became interested in thinking about what happens to building materials when the use of buildings ends. I made a scale model of a former grain silo that was converted into a student dormitory using natural materials. I placed the model outside, next to the student dormitory, on the riverbank and followed the model's decomposition process.
JOAR NANGO
Joar Nango is a Sámi architect and artist, working on making the Sámi architecture and its ideals visible and understood by a wider audience, connecting with other indigenous peoples and keeping the Sámi heritage thriving. He is known for Girjegumpi: the Sámi Architecture Library that is a nomadic library and was exhibited for example at the Venice architecture biennale in 2023. I have very inspired by Nango’s works since I first encountered it in 20200 and later I realised that my work had taken a very similar physical form. I feel like this is because I am following a very similar path than Nango from architecture studies to art, with similar values about recycling, borrowing from nature, communality, making by hand and mobility.
The path is setting up rules and guidelines within which I work, for example defining which materials are possible to use and how they should be collected.
MATERIAL DIARIES
My practice is based around of thinking about an alternative lifestyle in collaboration with nature. I use only the necessary materials, which are either borrowed from nature or recycled. Borrowing materials from nature means that they are collected gently, they can return to nature’s cycle by themselves and both the site they were collected from and the site they were placed to, will have no permanent sign of the actions. Natural materials I have used in my works are for example nettle fibre, unfired clay, snow, living willow branches, fallen branches, thin tree trunks, leaves and stones of the river.
Thinking about what material to use for what is an important part of my process. Collecting the materials is a time-consuming process. Most of the materials have been found by taking long and regular walks in Oslo.
JANNIK ABEL
Jannik Abel’s exhibition Back to the Land at Kunstnernes Hus (10.1.-9.3.2025) consisted of branches they have mainly collected from the seashore and that they took back after the exhibition. Before the exhibition they arranged a procession event, inviting people to carry the artwork to the exhibition. These events were inspirational to me from the point of view of the method of collecting material, returning it to nature, transporting it more sustainably by public transport and by foot and inviting participants for collective work.
MAGPIE / JUHANI PALLASMAA, ANIMAL ARCHITECTURE
I am inspired by birds’ way of collecting materials and building nests, especially I have been following the magpies in Oslo. I am inspired by the way animals build ecologically and functionally using some of the same natural materials that are also available for us and possible to use for structures scaled up in size, such as branches, clay, snow and plant fibres. Animals work these materials in accordance to their natural properties.
Juhani Pallasmaa is a Finnish architect, professor and writer that writes about art and architecture. In his other book Encounters. Architectural Essays (2012, p. 154-155) Pallasmaa writes that to face the climate crisis it’s time for architecture to move to what he calls “ecological functionalism”. This includes seeing ourselves and our creations as part of nature and not separate from it. The architecture needs to be non-autonomous and becoming a part of nature’s cycles and processes.
RETURN TO NATURE GATE
My master project during the first year was about collective building workshops. My hope was to create a (temporary) community, bringing people together to play and build together a Return to nature gate in a weeklong workshop. I invited everyone in our school and in the AHO architecture school that is located on the opposite side of the river. I wanted to invite the participants to share a lifestyle that is based on thinking of ways to co-exist - sharing space and time, helping each other and discussing with different people trying to see each other’s viewpoints. The act of constructing the artworks in workshops is half of the artwork, and the social aspect of making together is more important than the aesthetics of the final result. I wanted to offer a possibility for participants to slow down by working with natural materials and playing together.
RELATIONAL AESTHETICS
A French curator and art critic Nicolas Bourriaud concluded art practices of the 1990’s in his book Relational Aesthetics(1998). Relational aesthetics to him means that artworks strive to be based on encounter between people and, that in addition to the interaction between the artwork and a member of audience experiencing it, offers a potential for (temporary) communities to be formed.
TENT SAUNA BY AKERSELVA
My following of the search of a lifestyle in balance with nature, that includes the use and circulation of materials and collective way of working and being, at this point results physically in a form of a tent sauna. Sauna in Finland is known to be a place where people come as equals and maintaining a good atmosphere, both mind and body are washed, and we come closer to nature and the basic things by sensing with all our senses. The sauna space is reduced in terms of materials to maximize multisensory experiences. The sauna offers a setting for equal togetherness, in the dark and naked, where space and a moment are shared for relaxation of body and mind. I think sauna is as close as we can get to the alternative lifestyle in this moment, functioning as a kind of a portal between the lifestyles, so, I think it is a good place to go to start.
The sauna is a tent for easy transportation and easy putting up and taking down. I wanted it to be big enough to fit a small group of people and as small as possible to be able to make it of thin tree trunks that are not too long. I wanted it to stand by itself so that it can be put up in any place without leaving a trace.
The ultimate goal of the tent sauna is to tour in different places, inviting the local people to the sauna.
For the master exhibition the sauna will be on the KHiO schoolyard for the whole duration.
TEST STRUCTURE
I discussed the structure of my sauna with my mom, who is also an architect. She suggested we built together a 1:1 scale test of the structure when I was going to visit Finland this January, and so we did. It took all in all six days to build the structure, starting from collecting new branches from mom’s garden, planning the building procedure and organizing space for building, and continuing to the building process that also included some tries and fails.
Next, I will arrange a workshop to build a new test tent sauna here in Oslo using the materials I have collected.
MARJETICA POTRC
In the autumn 2024 I was very excited to find both physical and thematical similarities between my installation and Marjetica Potrč’s The House of Agreement Between Humans and the Earth at “Between Rivers” exhibition at Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo. Potrč is an artist and architect from Slovenia. Potrč’s installation is a wireframe of a house that is hanging from the ceiling and is made of spruce trunks that are tied together with natural rope. In the exhibition materials it was said of the installation that “The structure visualizes coexistence and codependence between the world of humans and the earth that supports it.”
SAUNA RITUAL
I am creating a program of different events happening at the sauna during the master exhibition with different themes, such as herbal teas, scents, music, fire, folk lore and sauna whisks. I am inviting peers from the school to collaborate and host some of the events. The sauna and its surroundings are meant to function as a meeting place, a place to stay and a platform the different hosts to try out things and enjoy sharing their work in a laid-back setting.
I presented the very first version of the sauna as part of the exhibition Tree Witches: collective rituals that Cole, Liz and I had at Galleri Seilduken 2 in October 2024. In the middle of the sauna installation space there was a staging of a sauna stove that was made of bricks and stones from the river. Under the stones there was an orange spotlight, and in the front of it a diffuser. The vapour had a fragrance of a smoke sauna made of tar. Under the stones there was a hidden speaker that played sounds I had recorded at different saunas. The sauna was in the middle of the exhibition space, and behind it on outside there was a bench facing the back wall of the gallery where there was a projection of filmed views of a lake.
I hosted a sauna ritual in the installation during the exhibition. The ritual started with the welcome speech performed by me in front of the sauna. Then, I invited everyone to enter the sauna and sit around the sauna stove. When we had entered, we washed our hands in a water bucket that was sent around. After one felt like they needed to cool down there is a possibility to go to “swim”, by sitting at the bench watching the lake videos. It was also important to drink the water, that was served by the bench.