19.12.23 | RIIKA TAURIAINEN | (Hochschule der Künste Bern / CH / FI)
Adrift with the more-than-human
Abstract
How can we dismantle destructive anthropocentric tendencies in relation to water bodies and ecosystems? How can we foster a comprehensive awareness of the life-sustaining networks of aquatic exchange in the midst of ecological meltdown? What kind of tools can we include in a situated more-than-human practice? Imagine a space for forging new bonds between human and non-human forms of agency.
The presentation will focus on the intersection of speculative art practices, ecological justice and research with more-than-human perspectives. From an artistic-ethical perspective, there is a desire to combine posthumanist ideas with fictional storytelling, and to create content that weaves together feminist theory and environmental studies. Interacting through the watery elements that can either bring us together or keep us apart. The subtleties of the entanglements of our sensory, objective and psychological states can create embodied experiences that evoke their own world of imagination, emotion and physical complexity.
In addition, the film “Plankton Imaginary” (2023), the result of a collaboration between artist Riikka Tauriainen and environmental scientist Meike Vogt, will also be screened. The project focuses on plankton, the microbiome of planetary waters: a journey to understand and reflect on the ecological, social and imaginary aspects of plankton beyond the scientific realm.
Biographical Note
Riikka Tauriainen (she/her//they/them) is a visual artist and lecturer engaging in ecology, postcolonial theories and gender issues through installations, videos and performances. She navigates on the boundaries between art and science, between fact and fiction. She explores water phenomena and the extent to which our kinship to other bodies can be understood as a deeply materialistic relationality. Riikka Tauriainen grew up in Finland and lives in Zurich. She studied in Tallinn, Essen, and Berlin and obtained her MA degree in Fine Arts from the Zurich University of the Arts. She is a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Art History, University of Bern as part of the SNSF research project «EcoArtLab» at the Institute Practices and Theories in the Arts at the Bern University of the Arts.
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