Application summary

Manuscript at the End of the World is an international collaboration between Lotta Petronella (FI), Roby Redgrave (SE) and Kaitlyn D. Hamilton (FI), artists working at the intersection of ecological storytelling, experimental publishing practices and socially-engaged artistic work. The project materially reimagines and responds to Lotta Petronella’s ‘Själö Herbarium’ manuscript – a robust body of research studying power structures through forest plants and ecosystem degradation. Illuminating the social, ecological, institutional and colonial histories on the island of Seili in the Turku archipelago by connecting them to the climate realities and anxieties felt by the wider world. Deforestation results in the irreversible destruction of suitable habitats for numerous species, many of which are at risk of complete extinction. With this project, we ask: Whose stories are remembered and whose are forgotten? Drawing from the forested locations and non-human voices present in Lotta’s ecocritical essays, poetry and visual archives, we’ll create experimental publishing and experience-driven installations across Finland and Sweden, including Uimaniemi, Nackareservet, Seili, Ruissalo, Olstorp, among others. Socially-engaged alternatives to the traditional, resource-heavy “artist book,” we work with these connected forests as both collaborators and installation sites, creating a living manuscript that is migratory, affected by its environment and readers. Material use is treated as a dialogue with the environment, with performative tables of contents, pinecone footnotes, swamp-soaked prints, seed-embedded pages and rotting bookbindings. Our collaboration is inspired by how trees share nutrients when one is ill, we work to uplift, expand and transform each other’s creative work. The installations will be documented through film and photography; shared through a lightweight, low-impact website and printed guides, making the work accessible to international audiences.