Residency artists and researchers

Multidisciplinary art

Kääpäjaosto

Workgroup Vappu Tuomisto, Elisa Honkanen ja Heta Jokinen

Biognosis: aggression

Biognosis (Greek bios = life, Greek gnosis = knowledge, deep understanding) is a multi-year artistic journey during which we strive to understand life rather than control it or seek a definitive definition for it.

During our residency, we will apply an eco-feminist approach to explore aggression both from a personal, physical perspective and in relation to care and occupations of care. Some of our team members work in the female-dominated health and social services sector where different forms of aggression are reflected in clients’ actions, the entries recorded of these actions or the omission of entries, as well as in employees’ exercise of power in relation to clients and colleagues. We consider questions such as how does the display of aggression affect the receipt of care and empathy, and how can a care professional receive or express aggression?

At the Saari Residence, we want to delve gently and furiously into our own bodies, meander aimlessly while observing our surroundings and knit, crochet, weave or even knot yarns into impossible tangles. We will carry out physical, verbal, and material-based exercises that will help us examine and convey the different forms of aggression and care and the different ways of displaying them.  We will document our process through writing, songs, drawings, handicrafts, animation and more.

Our art collective Kääpäjaosto wants to dismantle, destroy and experiment with the existing structures and, without haste, create new proposals from the resulting nutrients. It is important for our collective to work like a mycelium: slowly feeling our way forward with as little differentiation as possible. Our work is all about holistic well-being, recovery, care and enjoyment. Kääpäjaosto makes many kinds of art, including textile art, animation, video art, performances and community art.