Crossroads – New Views on Art and Environment offers a kaleidoscopic view of artistic practices that respond to the complex, at times contradictory entity that we choose to call “environment”. The book is co-published by the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York and The Academy of Fine Arts at the University of the Arts Helsinki, and edited by Ilari Laamanen. The publication will be launched in a seminar hosted by Bioart Society at the SOLU Space in Katajanokka on 12th of December, 2019.

The seminar happens within the exhibition Time and River are alike which will open the previous day November 11th 17-19h. Artists Leena and Oula Valkeapää, Silvia Ploner and Nicolas Perret, Tarja Tella and Alice Smits offer a glimpse into work done during their Ars Bioarctica residency at the Kilpisjärvi Biological station located in the Finnish sub-Arctic and part of Sápmi.

The event will be opened by Erich Berger, director Bioart Society and discussions moderated by journalist Pietari Kylmälä. Curator Jenni Nurmenniemi will read the publication’s preface and reflect on it’s topics. Professor Hanna Johansson and artist/researcher Leena Valkeapää, will engage in a dialogue, which explores environmental arts from locally grounded perspectives. Eero Yli-Vakkuri will share an insider’s view on the challenging conservation process of Nancy Holt’s Up and Under (1998) and Agnes Denes’ The Tree Mountain (1995), approaching environmental art conservation critically and framing it as a social praxis.

Crossroads – New Views on Art and Environment will be available for purchase at the event. It features newly commissioned or recontextualized texts by Maria Hupfield & Jason Lujan, Johannes Heldén, Hanna Johansson, and Eero Yli-Vakkuri, and generously illustrated project sections with work by Agnes Denes, Alma Heikkilä, Andrea Zittler, The Center for Land Use Interpretation, Eva and Franco Mattes, Honkasalo-Niemi-Virtanen, Jussi Kivi, Mustarinda, Nancy Holt, Outi Pieski and Rindon Johnson.

The publication has been produced in a collaboration between the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York and the Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts, Helsinki.

Seminar program:

11:30

- Vegan soup+naan lunch
- Meet and greet with book to browse

12:00 - 16:30

Presentations by book authors and invited speakers:

- Opening words Erich Berger
- Reading of publication’s preface and reflections by Jenni Nurmenniemi
- In dialouge: Hanna Johannson and Leena Valkeapää, moderated by Pietari Kylmälä

Break with coffee and Artisanal mineral water

- Notes on land- and environmental art conservation by Eero Yli-Vakkuri
- Q&A and closing remarks with Pietari Kylmälä

More info on the book

Exhibition info