MNEMONIA
INSTALLATION OF TWO SHORT FILMS, sound AND OBJECTS
“Landscapes, as well as the bodies dwelling in them, carry signs of what has been.”
- Marianne Mäkelin
Mnemonia (2021 - 2024 currently work-in-progress) is a collaboration project between designer-researcher Emilia Tikka, reindeer herder Oula A Valkeapää and his artist-researcher partner Leena Valkeapää. The artwork is an installation of stories in three temporalities, where centuries-old migration in the rhythm of the reindeer intertwines human, reindeer and landscape. The nomadic reindeer herding culture is in a danger of vanishing in the Finnish Sápmi, but the land and the reindeer carries the shared memories of the past. The installation includes films and objects, moving between past, present and speculative futures. The work combines research on the contemporary bioscience of transgenerational epigenetic memories and tacit knowledge on human reindeer relations. The outcome does not separate bioscience and reindeer cosmologies but rather weaves them together as stories of hopeful futures.
The artwork will premiere in Berlin in 2025, news coming soon!
Photo by Oula A Valkeapää
Photo by Oula A Valkeapää
Photo by Emilia Tikka
Photo by Emilia Tikka
The project has received funding from Finnish Bioart Society and ART4MED Residency and Finnish Kone Foundation (2020-2024).