Sari Lievonen

I am originally from northern Finland but I have been based in Glasgow, Scotland, since 2001. I completed my MFA at the Glasgow School of Art in 2007. For the past few years my art practice has been concerned with sensing places and experiencing environments with a special interest in the concept of landscape and how that influences our urbanised thinking and everyday lives. Another aspect that interests me in the dialogue between urban and natural is the ever increasing presence of technology and high-tec culture that tends to create the illusion of us being able to control ourselves as well as our environment(s).

My way of working with the landscape has been very direct, including trekking, hill walking and camping as part of my research alongside realising site-specific projects, too. Since falling pregnant and especially after the birth of my twins in November 2010 practising as I did before is no more a feasible way of working. In 2010 I worked ten months as an Artist in Residence at the Glasgow University. My project Sacrificial Contours of Law, Liturgy and Landscape: An Interdisciplinary Exploration enabled me to take my practice towards a new direction that I have been thinking about for some time. That is an art and science collaboration. During my time in the Saari Residence I can pursue further my interests in that direction by starting developing a new project that is concerned with problems of trying to become a mother or a parent. In this project I will look at how assisted-reproduction technologies (ART) can promise solutions when conceiving naturally is not possible or when using ART is more desired option due to genetic reasons. Though these technologies can bring happiness to many parents-to-be they also leave many without that joy. Furthermore they do not come and rescue us without arising ethical, economical and moral questions.

HTTP://WWW.SACRIFICIALCONTOURS.COM/