Alma Heikkilä

where processes are more critical than entities becoming aware of being affected

2024.04.26-08.12_AfterTheSun_F1MFG_038.jpg

where processes are more critical than entities

becoming aware of being affected

11m x 7m

polyester, ink, pigments, acryl, resin, plaster, The Buffalo AKG Art Museum

2024

Thanks: The Centre for the Social Study of Microbes at the University of Helsinki,

Arts Promotion Centre Finland, The Alfred Kordelin Foundation, Tuomo Tuovinen, Antti Majava

coadapted with

Comissioned by HAM/Helsinki Biennial 2023

A polyester screen and roundworms made from industrial silicone. Inhaling microbes. A hand touches a wooden chip, shedding dead skin. My warm, moist body, my urge to move, to look, to gather material and information – to decide, to move along.

This body sits down and looks at how the brown liquid is absorbed into the porous plaster. I feel like my body is far less permeable – but that isn’t completely true, is it?

Are there insects hollowing out the core of the tree trunk? I cannot hear it nor see it. Are they gnawing at the mycelium of Fomitopsis Pinicola? Living and decaying materials become intermixed. Unknown parts of insects, living and dead bacteria, pollen…

From this spot, I will take something very tangible with me. It will change me again; it will become a part of me.

Enormous, white, computer-generated hands that are severed from a body, bloodlessly, floating in outer space. It looks like they are holding the Earth. Detached human limbs thriving in outer space? The Hands could be caring parents to the planet, using their power and knowledge to nurture and improve the biosphere.

Maybe a bird will try to eat the silicone worm.

The forest is a place of risk; things that I cannot predict can happen here. I might and most likely will harm the environment that I am so curious about. Everything is already here, more than I can ever know of. I miss the museum, its clarity and simplicity. Space that is intended for humans and their art.

Just beneath the soil, in semi-darkness, a gentle tip of a nematode might touch my foot.

the microplastic from car tyres, from my shoes,

the coffee, the picture of an art event on my phone, a WhatsApp message from mum

the inconceivable beauty of the decaying tree trunk

lives within the tissues of the other

(+,+) soil, pore space, hyphae,phaneroplasmodium, small white wave,cells and cell clusters

(+,+) soil, pore space, hyphae,
phaneroplasmodium, small white wave,
cells and cell clusters

2023

540 cm x 280 cm, 540 cm x 280 cm,

540 cm x 280 cm

Jaettu tila, HAM mix, HAM Helsingin taidemuseo, Tennispalatsi 2krs, 3.3.2023-13.8.2023 ©HAM/Kirsi Halkola

semipermeable & sensitive

found living in total darkness

450 x 290 x 7 cm

Kopio tiedostosta PHOTO-2020-12-11-14-38-10.jpg

seawater can contain

not visible or recognizable in any form_detail_1 (1).JPG

ubiquitous, not visible nor recognizable in any form

hot prefrontal cortex

‘ , ‘ /~` mediums,.’_ ” bodies,.’_ ” ° ∞ logs,∞ ‘ , ‘ /~` ‘ holes, .’ `-. ` .’ — °habitats / /`
‘ * ‘-‘ . ‘ , ‘ /~`want to feel (,) you inside \| * . . * * \| * . . *./. .-. ~ .’ ‘ , ‘ /~` ❅ ☼ ~

in the air - into the lungs - lungs, living and non-living components, fumes, mists, smokes, granular particles and synthetic fibres, soot, lint and plant fibres, metallic fragments, pollen, spores, bacteria, mycelium, cysts, algal filaments, lichens, insects and their parts, plants and animal tissues, other microorganisms,

warm and moist | decaying wood - red, gastrointestinal tract, vomit, nipples, Mycetophilidae, Fuligo septica slime molds, jelly fungus, mycelium, Parasitoid wasps, wood-decay fungus, Hyaloscypha epiporia, xylariaceae, Crustose lichen, pseudoscorpions, arcyria denudata, long-legged flies, ruby-tailed wasps, cuckoo wasps, damselflies, snakeflies, metallic wood-boring beetles, halcophora mariana, crane fly, harvestmen, greenfly, ants, black-fly larvae, ticks, snails, mosses, Heteroptera, bacteria

⌇soil ~ minerals mixing with the living, lichens, slime molds, traces of insects and roots, mycelium, erosion, earthworms

in liquid > at sea > microalgae > cyanobacteria > Prochlorococcus marinus

these processes include plasticity, mutualistic symbiosis, and extinction I

image: Andrej Vasilenko and CAC.

these processes include plasticity, mutualistic symbiosis, and extinction

L: 985 cm x H: 285 cm

ink, pigment, acrylic, polyester, plaster, polymer resin

Busan Biennale, 2022

these processes include plasticity, mutualistic symbiosis, and extinction

2021

Earth, Wind, Fire, Water - Nordic Contemporary Crafts, Tendenser at Galleri F 15 in Moss, Norway.

' , ' /~` flashing decaying wood, / /` _/~ . * \| * ___ . . *

pollen grains, fungal spores, bacteria, mycelium, cysts, algal filaments and spores, lichens, insects and their parts, plants and animal tissues and several other microorganisms
2017

such biomatter
2017, Ø 21 x 90cm

none are truly separate

After the very first simple thought it gets weird, too difficult, paradoxical, dirty and dark, iridescent, complicated, interconnected and messy – like a mesh. The same message that comes through other media, I feel it in my body: medical signs. I’m glad we have The Nature Relatedness Scale instrument ;)

I (and many other humans, and why not some of their pet dogs as well) MUST CONSUME LESS.

Microorganisms, or microbes, are Very Small living organisms visible to us only with the aid of a microscope. They include viruses, bacteria, archaea, fungi, plants (such as algae), and protozoa, among others. Plants, animals, microbes, fungi, …....., and my skin are sensing and sharing. I Never Knew my Self. My Eyes have seen things that they Can’t See. I can only admire myself from afar, while already implicated within.

Protect me from what I want! What is it that the Earth wants (from us, Homo Sapiens)? The closer we get to it, the closer we look and the more we know — – - ★彡・・・・・☆`*:;,．★ ～☆・:.,;*Stress and mindfulness – Microbes and empathy interwined > it can make me better on emotional empathy. We – the city Hooded Crow, my neighbor Pine and I – experience the same stress, same diagnostic.

This is Me (the biophilist / multi-species ecological unit) working in a state of complete merging of the Self with all Life using materials like acrylic glue that is harmful to both Self and Others. Art that is allowed to use rare and dysbiotic materials?

The wider range of the materials included - the studio accessory, heating, my lifestyle, the way the glue is used and brushes washed. I travel and my art travels. If I can’t give up using acrylic glue in my art, could I still (yeah, right!) give up the use of other plastics/petrochemicals in other parts of my life? Is it possible to take some distance from my entanglement in fossil fuels?

From the level of the microscopic microbial ecosystems that reside within us (and make us), to the myriad macro-scale environmental ecosystems within which we reside and depend on (and make) – we’re interdependent/-existent: there’s no “surrounding medium”.

To reject the privileging of human existence over nonhuman existence. Is this “fashionable”? If it is – it’s kinda cool. Essential fashion on Most Important Matters. Please gimme more ᕙ(`▿´)ᕗ ♥

Trillions become one and this one is acting towards it