Artist Residency in Korpo. Finland.

AARK. Korpo/Korpoo. Turku Archipelago. South West Finland.

Latitude:60.16257°N Longitude:21.55793° E

Climate Zone: Continental

Transition Zone: Coastal

Baltic Sea Ice

AARK was my second artist residency in 2024.  I came to Korpo/Korppoo late March and stayed until the end of April.  Korpo is a quietly beautiful and magical place, one of the 40,000 (approx) islands in the Turku Archipelago.  

Forests grow out of a thin layer of soil and moss on top of these beautiful ancient rocks, which, I was told, are still bouncing back (in geological time), from being released from the weight of the retreating glaciers from the Ice age.

The residency accomodation is situated by the Baltic sea where a small ferry transports people and vehicles from Korpo to the next island and back every 15 minutes as part of their road system between the islands.

I spent 5 weeks here, sharing the residency at different times with 2 Finnish artists and 3 other international artists. We had our own apartments within the building but would get together for some shared meals and to talk about our work. Renja the residency co-ordinator also facilitated meetings with local Finnish artists during this time.

AARK residency accomodation.

For the first week I was still totally captivated by the sea-ice, and did a lot of photography and timelapses of the ice and of the ferry going back and forth.

With the sea on one side and forests, rocks and moss everywhere else, being close to a boat yard and the coming and going of the vehicle ferry, the work I created at AARK was of course influenced by all of these things. 

Found object compilation.

Studio by the end of the residency

I also collected sticks from the forest and made a few wall hangings and standing sculptures with the sticks and found objects. Tangled Blue (see below) was influenced by the nature of Korpo/Korppoo. The melding of the natural/unnatural materials into one object is a consideration of how although nature doesn’t ask for the man made things that are discarded into it, these discarded materials often become entangled with nature or vice versa, and something new emerges that is neither one or the other.

Tangled blue.

This is the work I created on the handmade paper sketch book I had brought in Seattle. I did one of these everyday and gradually noticed how the shapes in the drawings related to the shapes and colours of Korpo. I enjoyed creating this one so much that once this lot of paper ran out, I did a second Northernscapes on different kind of paper. See below.

Northernscapes II. Mixed media on paper.

Whenever I stay in a place for long enough I like to pick a spot and take a photograph everyday at the same time from that spot. The camera is always handheld so sometimes the matching up of the daily photos into a short video is not perfect but I like that imperfection, and enjoy that creating a video from the stills, emphasises how different the sea and sky looks from day to day.