Bodies are containers for life, they exist in the present yet carry the past within. Attuning to one’s body and senses is attuning to being in relation with one’s environment and with the myriad of other bodies and life forms that exist in countless shapes and sizes. Bodily knowledge or, „knowing in and through the body”, as philosopher Jaana Parvianen puts it, has been long suppressed in the Western epistemological accounts. What happens when we begin to listen to and with our bodies, when we embody what we know, when we form collective bodies that can act beyond the capacities of individual bodies? How does artistic and curatorial work that attunes to diverse bodies and bodily knowledges contribute to the emergence of transformative agencies and collective action?
Part of Episode XVII: “Assembling Knowledge”
With Satu Herrala, Lotte van den Berg, Ahmet Öğüt & Florian Malzacher
31. May 2022 – Uniarts Theatre Academy, Helsinki / Finland
Biography
Satu Herrala is a Helsinki-based curator and researcher with a background in dance, choreography and somatic movement practices. Between 2015 and 2019 she worked as the artistic director and curator of Baltic Circle International Theatre Festival in Helsinki. Her other curatorial works include A I S T I T / coming to our senses contemporary art programme co-curated with Hans Rosenström, Make Arts Policy programme in collaboration with Eva Neklyaeva, Dana Yahalomi and Terike Haapoja; and a series of Sauna Lectures at various festivals. Currently she is working with Pauliina Feodoroff on the performance Matriarchy for The Sámi Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale. Since 2016 she is a doctoral student at Aalto University – School of Arts, Design and Architecture, researching embodied curating as a methodology for emergence with Professor Bassam El Baroni and Daniel Blanga Gubbay as supervisors. In the context of her curatorial PhD she is working with Tamara Cubas, Jussi Lehtonen, Julia Asperska and Marianella Morena on a Finnish-Uruguayan art and research initiative Forest as a Geopolitical Stage. She has been a regular guest lecturer and mentor at the University of the Arts Helsinki and Iceland Academy of the Arts.
Links
- A I S T I T / coming to our senses (co-curated with Hans Rosenström)
- A I S T I T / coming to our senses - Chapter 3: Resonant Bodies
- A I S T I T / coming to our senses - Exhibition catalogue
- “Porous Bodies - A dialogue on festival curating” (co-written with Eva Neklyaeva)
- Make Arts Policy (with Dana Yahalomi, Eva Neklyaeva & Terike Haapoja)
- Sauna Lectures in Reykjavik
- Aalto University research portal
