The project is based on community research and site-specific installations in deserted premises and natural landscapes to investigate dynamics and phenomena between memory and time – their relationship, perception, nature.

Research, planning and implementation for the project are scheduled to take place between 2025 and 2026, mainly in the rural areas of Ostrobothnia as well as in industrial settings in the city of Vaasa.

 

The groundwork involves interviews based on open dialogue, the sharing of multidisciplinary documentation and the collection of inspirational material, in cooperation with local people connected to these places.

This almost archival-like action is intended to gather material for the main artworks and to explore, interconnect stories that are about to fade away, translating them into active exchange and salient insights, in order to stir and spur timeless introspective dynamics within our contemporaneity.

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The main artistic output is focused on video art, poetry and the design and realization of spatial, immersive and interactive installations, which will be open to the public through display events. Embracing interdisciplinarity and experimentation in the visual arts, the work also incorporates word art, sound art, multimedia art and performance... all inextricably linked to space and time.

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In later stages of the project, the topics will also cover landscape and the environment, analysing our awareness and (altered) perception of the territory and its changes, as well as the idea of ´home´ and the construct of belonging. 

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The project 'What is Left in the Temple of Memory' underlines the entwining of time and memory, the human perception and alteration, the traces left behind that wear out quickly and those that endure, history that fades and evaporates by repeating itself; Reframing meaning and value in ephemerality, perceiving differently the possible values of impermanence in perpetual awareness.

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From this universal perspective, as a counterbalance, attention is paid and value is given to sharing existences that bring us back to our present, to our surroundings.

‘Home’ as a body… as symbol of us. Intimacy and individuality, but also connective structures to the community and collectively. Personal memories that belong to us, and reminiscences imprinted unaware within us. 

 

Disused, abandoned, forgotten places what do they whisper… what do they exude?

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What can and should we hear, do not forget? And what inevitably falls into oblivion, crystallizing in remote places of our unconscious? How tied are we to the material, to the tangible? How do the traces around us transform themselves, how do we perceive them, and what do they transmit to us? Why do we want to passively take refuge, but often escape from memory and estrange ourselves from our history? What do we hold, freeze, warp, and what should we really take from this unstoppable change and empty song of the phoenix… what could we become?

 

These are some of the quests the project attempts to depict, finding a plural artistic expression through reflective and evocative experiences of individual poetics and collective imagination.​​​

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​​The art project is supported by Arts Promotion Centre-Taike, Svenska Kulturfonden, Svensk-Österbottniska Samfundet, Bröderna Gröndahls Stiftelse, Vaasa City and Finnish Cultural Foundation.

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Partner and collaborators: Vaasa City Museums, Vaasa City Culture Department, Architect Ruusa Viljanen Rossi-Tidorum, Regional Dance Center in Ostrobothnia, Elokuvakeskus Botnia ry, Övermark Byaråd, Roger Palmroos and Camilla Ågren.

Communication collaborators: Vaasa City Culture Department, City of Nykarleby/Uusikaarlepyy, Korsnäs Municipality, Korsholm Municipality, Art in Malakta rf.​

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