Miia Kettunen⎜Finnish cultural foundation (Finland)

Miia Kettunen is a Rovaniemi-based multidisciplinary visual artist (MA) working locally and internationally. In her current works, there is a poetic longing for connection with the natural environment, which is often conveyed in the works that are permeated by the independent trace of nature. She is fascinated by working in unconventional contexts and generating dialogic paths with the public that innately merge into her works. She uses components from environmental art, bioart, alternative photography techniques, media arts, and costume in her works. Among others, her works have been presented in Art Ii Biennial 2020 — The Knowledge of the Earth, and in Sweden in Land Art Biennial (X)sites 2023. In the year 2023, she worked as a Saari Residence alumni awarded by the Kone Foundation. Her work has been supported by a residency in 2021 with the British interactive arts studio Invisible Flock. The same year she was selected as a STEAM residency artist, taking place in collaboration between the cities of Oulu and Edinburgh. Both residencies were subsidized by the Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland.

At NART Miia Kettunen invites local scientists and members of the community to participate in her Land Portraits installation focusing on the connection between humans and land, and on exploring proactive actions toward the local environment. She implements light meditative practices with participants, with a focus on the emotional and sensory connection with the land. Together with the participants, she explores the sense of land with the help of non-rational perception directing the focus to the presence of being with the land. The practice leads to a self-portrait taken by the participant as an image conveying the non-verbal connection. 

The portraits are printed with cyanotype on fabric, framed, and installed in the chosen indoor or outdoor locations in Narva. The sites can be anything from a gallery to a participant ́s garden or a public park depending if the portrait contains a proactive element supporting the local ecosystem. The fabric gently hovering over the surface of the ground can e.g. offer protection for planted elements that will slowly grow over the image transforming it as part of the land.