- Residency period: Winter 2023
- Institution in Residency
The Mustarinda Association 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. At the centre of our activity lie contemporary art, boundary-crossing research, practical experimentation, communication, education and events. The Mustarinda Association reaches towards a post-fossil culture by combining scientific knowledge and experiential artistic activity. The Mustarinda Association is active both internationally and locally. Our activities are rooted at the Mustarinda house at the edge of the Paljakka nature reserve in Kainuu, Finland.
Members of The Mustarinda Association
Michaela Casková is a visual artist, art educator, nomadic gardener and forager who keeps an eye on atmospheric events. Motivated by processes of connecting, sharing, doing, being and learning together she keeps moving between different collaborative and interdisciplinary projects. As an active member of Mustarinda association she works on projects intertwining art, research and ecological and cultural diversity. Michaela received masters in Fine Arts (2012) and Masters in Art education (2014). Ever since she has been working as community weaver and mediator between art, science and its various audiences. Most of her wanderings, foraging and gatherings are connected to Mustarinda house surrounded by old-growth forest, by the sea in her studio in Helsinki or by the hills of her homeland in Czech.
Robin Everett is a visual artist and writer working living and working between Finland and Norway with themes and concerns that encompass the macro and micro of Nordic biomes and wider socio-ecological concerns via contemporary art, environmental education, residency hosting, research, and publishing practices. Robin received his Masters in Fine Arts (2018) from Bergen Academy of Art, Norway and has since explored processes that often question how our understanding of environments and ecologies are impacted through systems that operate at the intersection of the human and more-than-human spheres.
Tiina Arjukka Hirvonen lives and works in Kainuu, Northern Finland. Tiina is an art educator, cultural worker, artist and most importantly a husky companion. Social encounters (human and non-human alike), creating opportunities for art in rural areas and outside conventional art spaces audience, and the importance of art education in building an ecologically and socially sustainable future move and motivate her work. Tiina received her BFA in 2012 and later Master of Art in Art Education 2020. Besides Mustarinda association activities, she currently works as artist-pedagogue in Kainuu area youth and children culture center, and also in an art-science project dealing with biodiversity and evolution, in the University of Jyväskylä.
https://linktr.ee/tiina.arjukka
Riitta (Nyyskä) Nykänen lives and works Siikavaara, Puolanka Finland. She is an environmental educator, forest activist and a wannabe artist. She has worked for various educational institutions, Ministry of Education in Finland and for the last 22 years of her career for Finnish Metsähallitus Natural Heritage Services as senior adviser of environmental education. From that post she retired in April 2022. Her roots and many of her activities and works also are connected to non-governmental organizations, for which she has provided training and materials of nature interpretation and understanding natural diversity. Lately she has been working closely with Mustarinda association and artist residence as natural diversity expert. Through Mustarinda she has resourced for example dance performances, film productions and workshops for schools and the general public.
Funded by the Nordic-Baltic Mobility Programme for Culture
