Elina Bry has been chosen as an artist in residence for Ii KulttuuriKauppila Art Centre via Photo North’s Adaptation-project. During their residency, Bry will explore the relationship between humans and nature in our time of climate anxiety and climate change. The resulting work will address the topic through moving images, sound and performance. In Ii, Bry aims to bring the voices and feelings of local people about nature to a larger audience. During the residency, Bry organizes workshops for locals, where local nature is explored through movement and sound. As half-Finnish, Bry has a strong bond to Finnish nature, which they have previously processed in their previous work Is The Earth Chronically Ill? (2023-2024).
Bry, who works with lens-based art and performance, has previously held residencies in the UK, Australia and Vietnam, among others. Read more about Elina Bry’s previous projects on her website: https://www.elinabry.com/
The Adaptation project will include residencies for artists and researchers at the Oulanka Research Station (Kuusamo), the KulttuuriKauppila Art Centre (Ii) and the Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory (Sodankylä), as well as a research and development laboratory at the Oulanka Research Station. The main exhibition will open at the Oulu Art Museum in October 2026. Adaptation is part of the Oulu2026 cultural programme when Oulu is the European Capital of Culture in 2026.
The partners of the Adaptation project are the University of Oulu’s Oulanka Research Station, the University of Oulu’s Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory, the KulttuuriKauppila Art Center, Street Level Photoworks and the Oulu Art Museum.
The project will develop artistic, social, scientific, human and non-human activities and cooperation in 2024–2027. The project is funded by the Oulu Cultural Foundation and the Kone Foundation. The project is a continuation of the international research project More-than-Planet, which was implemented in 2022–2025, and was awarded Creative Europe funding under program code No 101056238 and national matching funds from the City of Oulu and the Finnish National Board of Education.