PHYSICAL LOVE POEM FOR LAND
A CONVERSATION WITH JULIA KUKKONEN
Julia Kukkonen is an artist, innovator, and gentle radical activist. She was born in 1988 in Finland and after years of living and working nomadically, has recently moved into a forest, to live in an eco-community in rural southern Finland. Her versatile work is rather mission than medium driven, and she easily changes her role from an artist and creator to an activist, educator, facilitator, or producer. In whatever she does, she is tirelessly looking for ways to live responsibly and sustainably in here with each and every being, and values art and actions that can be felt in the real world. She is living in an ever-wondrous world full of magic.
Her mission amid the current situation is to stay soft and show care to the world and its beings. She is creating to find ways to soothe the aching souls in the storms of the Anthropocene. And not only those of humans but the souls of every being in here.
Julia holds a BA in Performance and Fine Arts, and has a BSc degree in Architecture as well. She has exhibited her artistic work widely in Finland, and in other European countries as well as in the U.S.A. Her work has been generously supported by Arts Promotion Centre Finland and other organizations. Thank you for joining our platform Julia, very excited to share this interview.
Greatest inspirations or influences?
It feels almost like too much of a cliche to say that nature is my biggest inspiration, but as rings so deeply true for me, I just can’t not say it. I grew up quite wild and free in Finnish forests and have always felt the inter connectness with more-than-human-world. And while nature is my teacher and ally, my familiar mother and my source of comfort, it is also constantly changing, unexpected and wild beyond my imagination. And that relationship inspires me. There is always something new to feel, to discover, and to experience.
I am also inspired by different art forms. I read a lot of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, and usually notice the reading influencing my work, or my work influencing what I am reading. It’s actually difficult to discern which comes first, as the processes are often so intuitive and go hand in hand. I love films. The poetic, layered stories of existence by directors Sergei Parajanov and Andrei Tarkovsky in particular, have made a huge impact on me and my art.
Also, seeing and experiencing paintings by Mark Rothko and Hilma af Klint, were deeply spiritual experiences that changed something in me and how I view the world.
Another remarkable influence comes from my spiritual practice. I delve deep into the metaphysics, practice meditation daily, and live honouring this beautiful, delicious existence. I drive to create in alignment with that view of the world, seeing myself only as a tiny part of a vast network of interconnected consciousnesses, a part of a large continuum. I feel the responsibility and gratitude for the Earth, for my ancestors, and also those yet to come.
How did this particular set of visuals come to being, what is the background behind them?
The work was made when I lived in Iceland 2018. For me, it was a time of deep ecological grief as I was just really embodying the level of environmental destruction and disconnecteness from nature happening in the human world. I lived in an extremely powerful, rural place mountains, waterfalls and the ocean as my companions. At the same time I was feeling this devastating, overwhelming grief for the lost futures and the dying of the Earth, my first love. My heart was ripped open and vulnerable, and I was conversing with nature a lot, asking advice and soothing for my being from the Icelandic landscapes.
As my artistic practice is mostly body-based, and I also dance butoh, I found it most natural to have the conversations with nature using my body. It is the language most cherished to me. In this abstract way of communicating, there is no need for limiting words, but the immediate, bodily experienced communication can take place. As I felt grateful beyond words for all I had been so generously given by the Earth, for how she was holding me in the time of grief, the idea of reciprocity surfaced. I wanted to give something back. And while there is not much one can give for the Earth, there’s always time, consideration and gratitude. I was embodying deep love for the Earth and I wanted to express it for her. So, my abstract expression of the feeling, my gift for the Earth, in a form of the Physical Love Poem for Land came to being.
How has the current world situation affected you as a creative and how do you think the world is going to change moving forward for artists and for everyone?
After my calendar got wiped empty overnight, I have turned into other type of work. I am very fortunate in a way that I live in rural environment, not being confined in a small place, and have been able to be in nature a lot. I have mostly used this opening for quiet work, for contemplation and research, and building up an ever-firmer foundation for the work I do. Still sometimes the situation has felt difficult, I have just been focusing on breathing and existing. I have rested and meditated.
I don’t dare guess how the world is going to come out of this. I feel optimistic, but don’t want to have naive expectations. I am afraid we have to face even more grief, separation, and destruction in order to really change things on a collective level. But I really, really hope we don’t have to go so far.
I truly believe it is our job as creatives to imagine a more beautiful world for all of us. To really dedicate our time to experiment how a more loving, interconnected, and harmonious world would feel and look like, so that when the collective is ready, there is another way of existing we can step into. Or this is something I at least am tirelessly working toward.
Favorite websites, social media handles you enjoy to follow?
My heart expands and I get very excited when I encounter beautifully crafted words and wisdom carried to us from beyond generations, aeons even, or beyond our human realm.
I follow a fb page called The Woman Who Ate Fire (https://www.facebook.com/thewomanwhoatefire/),
and regularly dive into the inspiring posts on The Dark Mountain Project (https://dark-mountain.net/).
I listen to Emergence Magazine Podcast (https://emergencemagazine.org/).
I watch films on an excellently curated platform Mubi (https://mubi.com/showing).
Anything else you would like to share?
Since last year, I have been co-running a community project, which I also founded. The project is called Sydenkoulu – Place of Becomings, and we are aiming at establishing a place for resilient, alternative education for adults in near future. The project’s focus is on the very same fields as my artistic practice’s – creating and imagining the more beautiful world for all, starting deep from each individual and finding their personal integrity, making sense of the world, and discovering the areas of agency.
The project’s first longer experiment, the Summer School, got postponed to 2021 due to the global situation, but we are currently exploring different possibilities for online and small group live gatherings. For example, later this summer, we will start holding an online grieving circle for climate-related grief. More information of the project can be found on: www.sydenkoulu.com