Seusuo is a dance video filmed in peatland of Kemijärvi, Lapland. Peatlands are important part of nature’s diversity and their capability to store carbon is meaningful on the age of climate change. A swamp can be considered as a healing fountain or a threatening abyss. It’s a captivating place that hides treasures in its layers. What kind of experiences has it preserved into itself?
The artwork pays attention to a post-humanistic point of view. When the artist had to choose the location for the video, they first asked the swamp how it sees them. Nevertheless, the history and memory of a swamp is so long compared to individual human’s time on this planet. At the Biennial the video is set as an installation, that creates a quiet conversation between the video and some industrial produced peat on the floor.
Maria Laitila works in the field of performing arts and contemporary art pedagogy. Her enthusiasm is grown for the questions of life, communication, consciousness and emotions. Marja Haapakangas is a video artist, fine artist and visual art teacher. Her method in film making is bodily as well as deeply mental. Moving with camera is a kind of authentic movement. In dance videos she works as a mirror for the dancer. Camera is to her an extension of the body of the film maker.
Seusuo is a part of the artists’ wider dance video project The Shape of Nature. The contemporary dance videos are like journeys, a review in the matrix of experiences of the inner world and the space where one is present with what is known and what remains unknown.
Seusuo will be seen at Villa Kauppila in June as part of Art Ii Biennial 2020.
Installation will be open:
13 June – 14 June 2020
Sat-Sun 11AM-3PM
16 June – 4 July 2020
Tue-Fri 12-4PM and Sat 11AM-3PM
Closed on Sundays and Mondays and on Midsummer 19 June – 20 June.
Address: Villa Kauppila, Kauppilantie 12, 91100 Ii
Free admission!