Residency artists and researchers

Multidisciplinary art

Mari Keski-Korsu

Artist and doctoral researcher, Aalto University, Department of Art and Media

Kuva: Jussi Virkkumaa

My artistic research focuses on empathic, interspecies ritualisations and changes in them in the era of Anthropocene. The field research has been mainly conducted in the subarctic as a part of an interdisciplinary art and science research group in the Abisko Scientific Research Station. I am focusing on the more-than-human relations, their sensorial ecologies and the condition of permafrost as an archive of knowledge. The practice based methodologies include (barefoot) walking and intuitive interspecies communication.

Currently, I am working on hydrobodily encounter of permafrost. I am juxtaposing the vulnerability of the permafrost condition and the human body in a steam bath – linking this vulnerability to steam bath healing practices of the past and today. The outcomes of the artistic research that I will be working on in the Saari residency, are experimentation of participatory performance and a related video piece called ‘Walking with Permafrost Bacteria’. I will be also writing a lot along these matters.

Mari Keski-Korsu is a post-disciplinary artist who explores macro-level manifestations of the Anthropocene. Her work is based on collaborations with different kinds of communities and species and medium of expression is a hybrid combination of participatory performance, visual and live art. Her current practice for several years is focused on interspecies communication and hydrobodily care to possibly enable empathy towards whole ecosystems. She is interested in intersections in between art, activism and science from permaculturic and ecofeminist perspectives. She is a doctoral candidate to study towards Doctor of Arts degree in Aalto University’s School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Department of Art and Media. Her research focuses on emphatic interspecies ritualisations in change in the Arctic. She has been an active member of Bioart Society for a decade.

research.aalto.fi/en/persons/mari-keski-korsu
marikeskikorsu.net