Miia Kettunen⎜Finnish cultural foundation (Finland)

BIO

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 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. 

PROJECT

At NART, Miia Kettunen invites local scientists and members of the community to study the connection to the land. She guides light meditative walks in the outdoor premises of the Kreenholm factory for deepening the connection to the built and natural environment and landscape. She leads the participants in sensing the land with the help of non-rational perception of mind and body consciousness, and directs the focus of being present with the land. Her aim is to pilot a meditative audiowalk during the residency.

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Memorials for the Future made by participants during Miia’s walk tours in the Kreenholm surroundings, created at the end of the walk following the instruction:

Go inside this empty house and collect a few pieces of tiles and slates from the floor of the house. If you can, make a small Memorial for the Future of the materials you find. How would you like to see the future of the factory site and its surroundings? The future of this land? Write down what your memorial for the future means. You can also give it a name.