The Meander/Boreal Forest LAB is a symposium for artists and scientists gathering together with the idea of sharing knowledge and thoughts. Organized on May 15-19 2023 Oulanka Research Centre, Kuusamo, Finland.
The More-than-Planet / Meander/Boreal Forest LAB provides access to the Oulanka Research Station for artists interested in intersections of art and science. The research station and its surroundings provide opportunities for research and art in a wide range of fields including climate, biodiversity, extreme conditions, stream ecology, coniferous zone research, land use change and transformation, biology, remote sensing and past, present and possible futures. The area provides opportunities for study of the various impacts of climate change on local populations, nature and the vitality of the area.
During the LAB, the artist(s) will be able to research and work with long-term research data and real-time research environments, such as the EcoClimate sensor and testing fields in a hillside swamp and a pine forest.
Ula Kiliulyte
More-than-Planet Meander/Boreal LAB // Kotryna Ula Kiliulyte is a Lithuanian born artist living and working in Glasgow, Scotland. She holds a BA in Visual Communication and a postgraduate degree in Fine Art from the Glasgow School of Art. Kotryna’s work has been shown internationally, including Northern Photographic Centre Oulu (Finland), Street Level Photoworks Glasgow (Scotland), Edinburgh Art Festival (Scotland), Stills Edinburgh (Scotland), Vilnius Photography Gallery (Lithuania), Supermarket Art Fair (Stockholm), La Nuit de l’Instant, Printemps de l’Art Contemporain, Marseille (France) and others. She participated in residencies in France, Canada and Finland, and received grants and awards from Creative Scotland, Lithuanian Culture Council, Hope Scott Trust amongst others. Kotryna is a visiting lecturer a the Glasgow School of Art in both Fine Art Photography and Communication Design departments. Kotryna is currently researching for a new body of work forests forests, dioramas and love letters.
Film still from Temporary Organ (Arctic Swell chapter III, 2022). Arctic Swell is a body of work exploring intersections in between climate change, nurturing as resistance and perception of time. The work looks at the timelines of human gestation and irreversible human caused processes on the planet, using video, photography, temporary sculpture and text.
Mari Keski-Korsu
More-than-Planet Meander/Boreal LAB // Mari Keski-Korsu Mari Keski-Korsu is a post-disciplinary artist who explores macro-level manifestations of the Anthropocene. Her work is based on multi-species collaborations and her medium of expression is a hybrid combination of participatory performance, visual and live art. She is focused on interspecies communication, hydrobodily care and is interested in intersections in between art, activism and science from permaculturic and ecofeminist perspectives. She is a doctoral candidate to study towards Doctor of Arts degree in Aalto University. Her research focuses on interspecies ritualisations in change in the Arctic. Her field research is located in Abisko Scientific Research Station.
Walking with Permafrost (barefoot), 2022 is an artistic research on sensing the Anthropocene in the Arctic trough participatory performance.
Kuai Shen
Kuai is a transdisciplinary mediator of ant worlds. His practice-led research specialises in ants through technology-based performances that combine multispecies ethnography with decolonial tactics. Using transversal methods, he operates a diversity of electronic, audiovisual and coding processes as weaving actions to register ant behaviours and create data and algorithmic-driven artworks. His recent PhD developed the concept of inverted aesthesis: an alternative exploration of invertebrate sensorial abilities and human-ant relationships that oppose conventional representations of ants within dominant research imaginaries.
The Rain Ants of Sarayaku, Kuai Shen, 2022: in Sarayaku, army ants are known as rain messengers. By means of tactical mediations, I repurpose electronic sensors, machine algorithms, and olfaction to turn colonially-biased scientific descriptions of army ants upside down: a multi-sensory installation composed of photos, videos, sounds, water vibrations, conductive threads, and synthetic odours that reveal the identity of rain ants as territorial weavers who turn themselves into shelters and bridges over water.