A
neglected area of the LABYRINTH at Saksala ArtRadius in Finland is
transformed to a special place for children. Here they can go around and
find the spaces, objects and paths the artists have created. This
LABYRINTH is made to go in, to play and to add also something. The
LABYRINTH will never be finished, it is a growing project and after the
artists also the children are invited to participate in it.
In contrast with the regular part of the LABYRINTH, this part is not
cleared up, the area has to be inviting to start doing something. If
children want to reorganize a part for themselves it is possible, they can
use the material that is left.
The artists have added art works which fit in the space. Constructed walls
and a light tower; different creatures coming from different directions;
objects that invite to go in, to swing or to let them balance. With and
through these art works children can feel their relation with nature and
art. It appeals on their imagination and invites to interact.
In artist Milja Viita´s
four-channel video installation children from Finland and Kenya give voice
to endangered forest birds. The children´s skilful imitations of birdsong
are also a touching statement of future generations for the preservation
of forest biodiversity.
The piece is a public artwork that invites viewers to consider the impacts
of our lifestyle on forests in Finland and in the developing countries,
and on the communities that are dependent on them.
Viita´s work was shot in Finland and Kenya with groups of children from
schools and daycare centres. The artist took the children to visit former
nesting areas of endangered or extinct birds. She wanted the bird songs to
be performed by children, because the deterioration of forest biodiversity
means that the song of many more birds will never be heard by future
generations.
In the original installation consisting of four video projections, the
groups of children are presented in an interactive relation to each other
– each group, one at a time, imitates the birds while the other groups
listen. The audience steps into the centre of the piece and joins the
listeners.
A girl group from Mida Primary
School in Gede, at the coast of the Kenya.
A group
from Tuorila Primary School in Karkkila, southern Finland.
This structure, the so-called "Seed Cathedral" by Thomas Heatherwick,
under construction in Shanghai for this summer's 2010 World Expo, has an
amazing ulterior motive: at the end of every one of the 60,000 transparent
acrylic rods that you see fuzzing outward into the sunlight are the seeds
of plants.
From the New York Times: "Heatherwick and his team worked with Kew’s
Millennium Seed Bank partnership to showcase Britain’s commitment to
conservation. They encased thousands of seeds in the ends of the
transparent rods, creating a larger-than-life catalog of the plant species
that contribute to national and global conservation programs, in a
veritable cathedral of seeds."
Finnish
makers Mikko Laajola and Niko Punin have been working in collaboration
with artist-producers Andrew Gryf Paterson and Ulla Taipale/Capsula to
create a new localised manifestation of the
Windowfarms Project in Finland, using local specialist (hydroponic and
LED growing technologies) and recycled materials. They were joined by a
group of local enthusiasts in the construction and documenting process.
The plants grown will be used in participatory Herbologies workshops
during Pixelache Festival.
"The
initial impetus to use animation to describe Antarctica was a heightened
sense of being that I had experienced there. Because I had used gestures
and lines to describe feelings about other places, I imagined it was
possible to do this for Antarctica.
The second, and far stronger impetus, was a desire to articulate
scientific knowledge of Antarctica. Our ship had arrived in Antarctica on
the day that George Bush had refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol
(February 2002). After witnessing expressions of disbelief in the faces of
scientists on board, I felt compelled to find ways to convey what they
know.
What could be done? If animation could be used to combine a heightened
sense of being, with scientific data from Antarctica, perhaps awareness of
our connection to global warming could be raised.
To describe Antarctica's changing environment seemed at first an
impossible task. However, understandings and skills grew from conducting
interviews and workshops; drawing, painting, making and animating;
establishing and maintaining a website and a blog.
Antarctic Animation describes Antarctica through gestures and lines
that combine my experience of Antarctica with my understandings of
insights shared by other Antarctic observers."
The website Antarctic Animation contains material for a doctoral
thesis being prepared by Lisa Roberts for submission to the College
of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, in March 2010.
