Application summary

My work investigates the relationship between material processes, labor and form. In the Saari Residency, I would like to develop the project “The Mindful Hand”. It’s a hybrid format between prose and image that focuses on human engagement with the territory through material mediations. I am particularly interested in connecting Otto Salomon’s ideas from The Teacher’s Handbook of Slöjd to contemporary perspectives on the culture of self. Through carving found wood and empirical writing, the project explores themes like our relation to the environment, the dissolution of self through engagement with handwork, the pleasure of bodily labor and the cultivation of perception and attention, which are all aspects that emerge through the exercise of a sustained practice. Importantly, the goal of the Slöjder, according to Solomon, is not the object itself, but the formation of the subject: the ways in which a practitioner slowly shapes themselves while attentively shaping the world around them. At Saari, I hope to find a context fertile for this exploration. My aim is to directly engage with the landscape while searching for materials to carve from, as well as relating to people in order to exchange experiences. Alongside my carving practice, I am interested in gathering archival material on Finnish and Scandinavian woodworking traditions, Slöjd pedagogy and utensil making. I aim to intertwine these historical threads with lived experience, producing an essay that traces the intimacy of being a hand. In its essence, this project is about how situated gestures of making within a natural/cultural landscape can help us understand what makes us human. Through prose and image, the work aims to show that even small gestures like carving a spoon can become an index through which one can read the marks left by the unfolding history of a place.