A Love Letter to a Tree is a recording of a self-imprinted change and an artwork of my affective joy of connection with the trees. It uses the underground network between a tree and fungus as a communication channel. My messenger is the ‘Pleurotus pulmonarius’ fungus living in decaying birch trees, which I have cultivated inside the artworks installed in an old mixed forest. The transformation in the works is guided by nature’s rhythm and the laws of the ecosystem, concurrently delivering their message in the network of mycelia and trees.
The video work Sharing Skins originates from the desire to understand how to find and encounter the reality of the trees? The human body is seen as a vessel for human consciousness, but does a tree have consciousness and where does it reside? As the name suggests, the artwork refers to sharing a skin with another, which evokes a thought of perceiving a tree as a tree-bodily being that communicates with a nearby human body in its own way. In the video, the animations of different 3D-scanned trees serve as portals “into” the tree, transporting skins towards and away from each other. The work asks if the encounter occurs in a meditative state of parallel existence, which is eventually very easy to experience for one walking with open senses on forest paths?
The exhibition also features a tree dress (untitled) and a related video performance (untitled).
Points of Coherence was created with the support of the British interactive arts studio Invisible Flock in the Cost of Innovation residency. The photography- and video-based works have captured mover-performer Anne Niskanen’s performance with trees.
Miia Kettunen is a multidisciplinary visual artist whose recent works have used elements from environmental art, bioart, alternative photography techniques and media art. She has a Master of Arts degree from the University of Lapland.
The Arts Promotion Centre Finland has supported my work.
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