Second round of NFA Recidency programme
- Published on Tuesday, 07 February 2023 13:57
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Image: Anni Laakso, Windpavillion, 2022
During February & March artists Anni Laakso, Antti Auvinen, Toms Kokins, Sallamari Rantala, Nina Svensson & Riitta (Nyyskä) Nykänen (residency December 2022) participating in NFA recidency programme and stays at NAC. The research/residency programme called Neringa Forest Architecture (NFA) started in 2020 with the focus on the features of both the human-made and natural forest: its ecological rhythms, organic and industrial material cycles, timber-based material development, socio-political discourses, history, forestry and policy-making; art, design and architecture.
RESIDENTS: Anni Laakso is a sculptor working and living in Helsinki, Finland. Her works consist of temporary sculptures and installations made of different found materials. Through her work, she often intervenes public places creating a new kind of transitory space where visitors can enter. She is working within urban connections, in galleries and public spaces creating places that are not privately owned and open for everybody. Her latest works include: Windpavilion in Notgalerie, Vienna, Disobedients, private exhibition at Gallery Sculptor, Helsinki, and a permanent sculpture for kids at Leinelä Kindergarten in Vantaa, Finland.
www.annilaakso.net Antti Auvinen is an architect living and working in Helsinki, Finland. He is interested in meaning, experience and power structures in the built environment, currently focusing on the history and possibilities of decommodified housing production. His work has been exhibited at the Finnish Architectural Museum, Helsinki Festival, Kosminen Gallery and the Venice Biennale of Architecture as well as published in the Finnish Architectural Review.
www.anttiauvinen.com/ Toms Kokins is an architect and lecturer at Umeå School of Architecture (UMA), Sweden, where he runs the ongoing project Studio 1: Carftopia. Exploring building cultures. Kokins’ research praxis conducts experiments on resource-conscious and context-specific architectural tools and methods that can empower local communities (Broparken urban gardening hub, Umeå, Sweden, 2019; Miera street mock-up Mierīgi!, Art festival Survival Kit 2014, Riga, Latvia, 2014).
His work ranges from individual architecture commissions to public space strategies and international multidisciplinary live project workshops (UMA, Arknat and Robertsfors commune collaboration, Sweden, 2023).
His current research project, Sweden’s Timber Empire, focuses on resource-driven colonisation in the Baltic Sea region.
Sallamari Rantala lives and works between Finland and Lithuania. Through her drawing and shaping techniques, she thinks of their materiality, the origins of matter, specific places and their interplay. Rantala mainly experiments on interpreting the interaction between the inorganic realm and the beings living within it. Her practice intertwines with the activities of the Finland-based collective Mustarinda.
Mustarinda is a group of artists and researchers whose goal is to promote the ecological rebuilding of society, the diversity of culture and nature, and the connection between art and science.
Rantala has recently exhibited her personal work at CAC, Vilnius, Lithuania; Verpėjos Gallery in Marcinkonys, Lithuania; IlmastoAreena in Ii, Hawerkamp 31 in Münster, Germany; SIC in Helsinki, Finland and others.
Nina Svensson is an artist based in Torsåker, Sweden. Her artistic practice focuses on social processes where attentive and observant negotiations can make visible the distribution and valuation of different forms of capital and ownership in contemporary society. Her methods entail a long-term presence-to-place approach, but also the development of trust and a space for meaningful artistic investigations, based on cooperation and cocreation with people connected to the topic or location in question. Svensson’s work is often placed outside the traditional artistic sphere.
She is now working with the idea of Friendships and the exchange of knowledge and historical experiences between forests in two countries. She also implements twin-town programmes around the world, that are very similar to political exchange programmes.
Riitta (Nyyskä) Nykänen is an environmental educator, forest activist and a wannabe artist. She has previously worked for various educational institutions and the Ministry of Education in Finland, and for the last 22 years of her carrier (until April 2022) she worked at the Finnish Metsähallitus Natural Heritage Services as Senior Adviser of Environmental Education. Her roots, as well as many of her activities and works, are also connected with non-governmental organisations, for which she has provided training and materials of nature interpretation and understanding natural diversity. Lately, Nykänen has been working closely with Mustarinda association and artist residence as Natural Diversity Expert. Through Mustarinda, she has resourced events such as dance performances, film productions and workshops for schools and general public. NFA programme is curated by Jurga Daubaraitė, Jonas Žukauskas and Egija Inzule Neringa Forest Architecture residency is co-funded by NERINGA Lithuanian Capital of Culture 2021, Lithuanian Council for Culture, Nordic Culture Point. |