Science advisor
Art and science
Artist’s bio
The work Olet tässä (You Are Here) consists of two spheres suspended in the air and several circular ‘viewing windows’ into the landscape. The title refers to the symbol used to help locate oneself on a map, often marked with a round shape. In the work, the round shape has been transposed straight into nature.
Laitinen’s artwork is characterised, as the central motif in his work, by humorous human intervention in nature, often with unpredictable results. Often his work acts as a performance, for example creating a tree which is sawn apart and then reassembled as though a puppet, or rowing an island shaped boat with a very small palm tree on it down the River Thames.
In this work he has created playful circular viewing windows formed by twisting branches to frame the surrounding landscape; giving new focus on the beauty of Koiteli’s nature, alongside two giant lichen covered spheres. The viewing windows are human interventions in a natural landscape, like pleasant disruptions. The spheres turn in the wind like pendulums: living instruments of time.
Aerial view of Koiteli, Kiiminki. Photo: Harri Tarvainen.
The spheres are miniature planets that become covered in lichen over time. Made out of juniper branches, the spheres have a “lichen cocktail” attached to them: a mixture of numerous different types of lichen collected from nature, crumbled into a new growing environment. Not all the lichen will survive. The sphere planets have different microclimates: one is located in a more open, windy place with more light and the other is in a more sheltered, shady place. Like the earth’s north and south poles which have different climates due to the amount of light.
Microbiologist Baas Becking formulated the hypothesis “Everything is everywhere, but the environment selects”. The environment will select which species of lichen will thrive, and which will not, something unpredictable and even though the sphere is man-made, only nature can control the end result. Olet tässä (You Are Here) is an artwork in which nature and the human touch are intertwined.
Materials used in the artwork are lichen, juniper, steel, wind turbine.
Viewing locations for "You are Here" artwork.
Science advisor
Professor Jouko Rikkinen, Botany and Mycology Unit, University of Helsinki.
Rikkinen has published numerous scientific papers in various fields of plant and fungal science. He is particularly known for his research on symbioses between algae and fungi. He is a distinguished nature photographer and writer winning the 2014 Finnish Nonfiction Writers Association award.
Art and science
Rikkinen and Laitinen discussed the conditions such as light and water needed for laboratory conditions for the scientists to study lichen and how these are adapted to understand the needs of different species and how climate change will affect them. Lichen can live for hundreds of years and so the lichen will outlive the art. Lichen are also bioindicators, especially of air quality; Laitinen grew up nearby in Haukipudas and has seen the improvement in the local lichen with the reduction of pollution. Lichen are also symbiotic and are both a plant and an animal at the same time, thereby echoing the importance for Laitinen of humans living interconnected with natural systems.
Antti Laitinen, photo: Kevin Kallombo.
Antti Laitinen (b. 1975 Raahe, Finland) lives in Somerniemi, Finland.
Solo exhibitions include EMMA, Finland; WAM Turku City Art Museum, Finland; Galerie Anhava, Helsinki; GSA Gallery, Stockholm; and La Patinoire Royale/Galerie Valérie Bach, Brussels. Group exhibitions include Borås Art Museum, Sweden; Borusan Contemporary, Istanbul; Savina Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul; Riverside Museum, Beijing; and The Art Gallery of Alberta, Canada. In 2013, he represented Finland at the Venice Biennale. Collections include the Saatchi Collection, the Zabludowicz Collection, the Saastamoinen Foundation Collection, ArtCenter/Istanbul, Kiasma and Wäinö Aaltonen Museum of Art.
