interactions
posted by Laura Kaker on 20 June 2021

During our stay in Kilpisjärvi we were learning from the local environment and plants growing around Saana. We were paying attention to all the plant matters, the ones growing under the snow cover, the ones which are always part of this special landscape. We tried interacting with the leaves, the wood, the flowers, the mosses, the lichens and the soils from the ecosystem. We interacted with them, modifying their bodies and changing our ways of working. 

Meeting and sharing discussions with the people here at the station has shaped our interactions. 

We interacted with the plants to document their shapes, colours, shadows and reactions, working with them on our handmade paper and secondhand fabrics. We painted on the fabric with the plant exact using the plant body as a brush, we pounded the plants to collect their residues, boiling and grinding them. On the hallway windows, in our room and in the lab, we could see their colour and texture changing, reacting to the light. The residents have witnessed the development of the anthotypes in the hallway.

Alongside our experiments, the lab took in the smell of the landscape.

"There is an ancient conversation going on between mosses and rocks, poetry to be sure. About light and shadow and the drift of continents. This is what has been called the dialectic of moss on stone, an interface of immensity and minuteness, of past and present, softness and hardness, stillness and vibrancy, yin and yang. “ - Robin Wall Kimmerer

sabrina shado hart & laura kaker