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Experimental Clay Workshop at Artist House Vartiosaari (6.-7. June)

Experimental Clay Workshop: Digging, shaping and firing from nature at Artist House, Vartiosaari island (FULLY BOOKED!)

Artist House in Vartiosaari island warmly welcomes you to the first workshop from the speculative nature series focused on CLAY. The workshop is hosted by  artists Monika Czyżyk, Elina Vainio and Eero Yli-Vakkuri who have formed an experimental clay group. The workshop has a DIY approach with a keenness to material experimentation and research. The goal of the workshop is to learn where and how to collect clay from its natural environments. How to clean and work with it. How to build your own ceramic kiln, how to fire it using local area resources as fuel and to enjoy the abundance of energy natural settings provide us. We will also prepare your own ash glazing, to complete a full geoartistic cycle.

Location: Taiteilijatalo, Artist House, from Reposalmentie 1 you can take the sun ferry.

Monday 6th of June. 10:00-18:00 (or as long as it takes). Building a kiln and preparing firewood.

Participants are welcomed with tea, coffee and spring water in the garden of the artist house. The group will share insight to Kurängen spring, a site where clay objects which will be burned in a kiln are prepared from. The group will divide based on their interest. The first half has the opportunity to join a sensual walk and dig or commence work on the kiln.

On the walk participants can either partake on a walk together to the heart of the island. The area with the richest biodiversity and swamp, the rich bacterial microflora allow more rare plant species to grow. From there we will respectfully collect clay. After the walk the clay will be cleared. Tools and stations will be provided. Participants can make their own small objects. The kiln building group will prepare mud-cement and lay bricks to form a functional kiln and prepare a lot of firewood for the next day’s burning session.

Tuesday 7th of June. 10:00 (or as long as it takes). Firing the Kiln We made and forging iron to pass time.

Participants will be welcomed with tea, coffee and spring water in the garden of the artist house. Participants can bring their own dry small objects ready for firing. Note that for the wood firing it is recommended to use more sandy clay. You are welcomed to experiment with glazing ceramics, arranging ceramics in kiln. As soon as the kiln is ready the firing of the ceramics begins. We will use three different techniques of increasing temperature and work on site by adding wood for 6+ hours.

You are welcomed to invent rituals by the fire with us. We can learn a bit about forging using scrap metal bits and rail track for an anvil. During the firing time we will eat a vegan lunch. It will be possible to visit gardens, and some sites in Vartiosaari island. At the end of the day after the ceramics have cooled a bit we will sneak a peak to them and leave them to cool overnight.

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We build a kiln with Elina and Monika. The construction was simple. Old bricks formed a square base for the fire (~40x40x20) with a half-a-brick size vent on the side opposing the opening. Bricks were laid to form a ~60cm shaft and a steel grill built in the middle. We used ceramic tiles on top of the grill to support the ten(ish) items we burned. The shaft was covered with a steel plate to keep the temperature. The opening had a partial brick door and holes in the kiln walls were filled using a clay/sand mixture for insulation. I had small bellow for building up temperature and a electric fan for building high heats (from Jesse).

The firing had three phases. 2 hours low heat using only wood as the fuel (this failed as the temperature rise too fast breaking an item), 2 hours of medium heat with more wood and energy form the bellow pumping up the temperature and 2 hours extreme heat with charcoal and the electric fan for extreme temperatures. We suspect we reached temperatures above 1100°C because a store bought glazing designated for 1050°C we used was burned. Some pieces which were closest to the heat also burned and showed charred glazed like surfaces, indicating the clay turned into lava.

While heating we practised forging using scrap metal bits and rail track for an anvil.

It took a day to build the kiln and prepare the firewood and a day for the firing. The items were left cooling over night. We used various clays and mixtures for the objects but clay from Kurängen spring worked best. We suspect it has sand particles in it which prevent extreme shrinkage, helping the items to not break in the heating. A thick jug I made from clay (partially found from the basin of the spring and three meters north east from it) is thick enough that contains water even without glazing.

We will do a new firing next month for glazing and making new things. For the glazing we’ll use a 1:2 ash and 1:2 clay mixture. The ash is from wood produced by the first burning and the clay from Kurängen. I’m in the process of washing the ash. The recipe and science comes from Phil Berneburg. We’ll build a bigger kiln and aim for a steadier pre-heating phase.

Using clay from a spring, to drink its water completes and begins a ritual a geoartistic-cycle. It feels powerful and I love that the process of preparing clay objects is thoroughly holistic: Using ashes from the first burning for the second burning glazing feels like a gaiaistic design. We also prepared small cups, which I’ll built a wooden tray for. The long term plan is deposit the items submerged into the Kurängen spring water, were they can be used by visitors and forest dwellers. The design of the items is utilitarian. The cups which we made don’t have any straight edges, which works well for the forest as it does not have any straight edges either.

A visit to the spring in long due. I should groom the garden of peat I planted.

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There are were a few statues depicting Lenin in public spaces in Finland. I don’t care much for them, they look boring but I get a melancholic vibe in their presence. They feel like puzzles or glitches which echo desires from a past, in a language I don’t understand. They feel displaced and lonely.

After Russia invaded Ukraine, there has been an urgent push to remove all references to Lenin and our ties to Soviet Union from public spaces. Turku is having had their minuscule Lenin bust, situated at the corner of a silent street removed and Kotka is planning did the same. Helsinki has a park called Lenin’s park which might will be renamed. There might be others too.

Right-wing conservative politicians in Turku argue that their statue is was due to removal because it “depicts an undemocratic and tragic phase in history, which does not manifest the developing cities strategy or the humane values of contemporary Turku city” (A loose translation of a statement by Turku major Minna Arve). Their critique does not extend to statues depicting different Russian tsars or Swedish kings. They want Lenin removed because it reminds them of communism.

In a recent debate regarding the renaming of a miniscule Leninpuisto (Lenin Park) in Helsinki 25 city council politicians reiterated that the renaming is a necessity because of Lenin’s “monstrous deeds” and claim that their efforts to rename the park is a feminist project, aiming to designate more public sites after historically significant women. This lie over the motivation is a disgrace to Otto Meri, the National Coalition Party member behind the recent renaming initiative. I’m not motivated to campaign against their effort because there are real political concerns which demand attention.

Their argumentation manifest the spite which past right-wing generations felt over the achievements of organized labour movement.  I see present day right-wing conservatives rallying against communism engaging in hauntological work. Their traumatic project aims to claim and taint “lost futures” as defined by Mark Fisher (introduced in a short 2021 article by Nicholas Diaz). More pressingly, the project is an attempt to evade discussing present day political relations and ties with Russia. Debating the removal of a statue is a convenient way to evade guilt over the fact that we –as the west we were– enabled Putin’s regime to emerge.

This evasion is useful for the present day Finnish politicians, who have leaned on Putin’s Russia and benefited economically from its exploitative and corrupted regime. For example Turku Energy was invested in the Fennovoima/Rosatom nuclear initiative and remained onboard in the project despite the Russian invasion of Crimea. Similarly National Coalition Party politicians have been acceptive to Russian oligarch investments (and a lot Finnish companies still operate in Russia), past Social Democratic Party leaders have worked for Nord Stream II lobbies and Centre Party leaders have taken positions in Russian banks and institutions.

The manner which the statues of a past communist figurehead is discussed, portrays them as been erected by an invading force. They were not. We did it because wanted to. It felt like a good idea at the time. Similarly, we have not been coerced into working with Putin – We took him as an opportunity and this backfired. Our wilful ignorance regarding the concerns Russian human right organisations, opposition activists and citizen voiced through the years is a reason why Russia started its attack against Ukraine.

Removing a Lenin statue is much easier than removing the stench of failed business deals. The attention they are receiving is a symptom of diminishing political agency. People feel powerless, that they cannot change the current system. They are taking revenge on an image of past communist leader, because this is easier then figuring out why establishing liberal economical ties with the Russia state failed in developing a democratic society.  Lenin has a few theories as to why… #☭

Edit: I resigned from the army reserve because the manner in which politicians use the war as a device for revising the legacy of socially progressive movements demands a response. They are building a Finland which does not exist for me. I’m working to leave this barren plain with my space comrades and no longer maintain a fantasy that defending these borders with guns aims for democracy.

Populist claim that present day Russia and its attack against Ukraine is derived from socialism, communism and is practically a project of the Soviet Union. People who make these claims very dangerously ignore that the 1917 Russian revolution was organized against an expansive imperialist state. The revolution was fuelled by a desire to end the many wars which the Russian Empire was engaged in at the time and an attempt to designate class (not ethnicity) as a foundation for nations.

Not unlike today’s Russia, the Russian Empire grounded its expansive campaigns on an ideal of a national destiny (partially defined by the church) and ethnically characterized patriotism, set to dominate the cultural diversity of the continent. If we want to learn anything from the revolution and it’s failure, it is that any appeals for a historic destiny of a nation and ethnically defined nation state projects, should be constrained by open democratic processes, public debates and legislative robustness which defaults to protect the weaker.

Democracy is threatened because ruthless politicians use emerging crises for short term political gain, and are eager to maintain a constant state of exception. Finland, for example, joined NATO without any public debates or a vote. Officials in charge at the time, even declared that entering a public debate in the matter, would open our ranks to Russian influence: We are told to comply and differing opinions were demonized. A historic destiny narrative of Finns as “neighbours to the bear” is being used to issue conservative restraints on cultural development. The state is buying automated biblically named weapons systems from Israel to protect its borders, while pressing cuts to social support and culture. Without a democratic culture and commons to share, we don’t have anything to fight for. They are protecting borders and don’t care about the quality of the content inside.

Working against wars is presented as a weakness and the strength I have is needed for peace-work. Under these conditions everyone should resign from the army. It is only a requirement portal for NATO, which conscripts are set to serve for free. It took a lot to arrive at this conclusion because my time in the army was a very rewarding experience, which helped me to understand Finns better. I don’t regret it but we deserve better.

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The middle-class punishes the overachiever. #☭ Environmental anxiety was popularized at the same time as hygge became a thing. They are the same. Environmental anxiety is a form of class consciousness, its a simmering hunch of the costs of hygge.

Presented a performance at a Kritiikki näkyy [Visible Critique] seminar and was interviewed on stage by Aleksi Salusjärvi (before the event by Maaria Ylikangas). The seminar was nice and I enjoyed learning how different authors approach climate matters. Class was not referred during the panels and I ended up agitating the crowd towards a global eco-social revolution. In the heat of the moment I framed it as a responsibility shared by people living in the global north. This came off as an severe symptom of a white-saviour complex and spoiled my attempt to emerge as a recovering survivalist. But still, I think moving away from environmental anxiety towards joined political movement is needed. During the seminar I realized that environmental anxiety is a reactionary political expression and that it is inviting to ecofasism (discussed in a recent episode of  DEATH // SENTENCE).

Eco-socialistic strategies for organization (self-governed small organizations syndicating in an effort to establish a global constitution which would make all forms off oppression impossible) offer a different stance to previous saviour-complexes ridden attempts to address climate change.

A project I struggled with for the past two years Personal Decamerone was published as a essay in No-Niin Issue 10. Feels great and I’m honoured of the portrait Jani Ikonen drew of me. Elham worked hard to shape the text, so that it would better help expand the horizon of possible sexual expressions (in the cis male domain I occupy). Looking back the first drafts read like a hate-letter (to myself).