Virva Kanerva
Korvanranta, Rovaniemi, Finland

In Ingold’s 1993 essay ‘Temporality of landscape’ he writes about looking at the landscape from the ‘dwelling perspective’. The landscape has been shaped by the work and living of the generations that dwelled there over time. In this art making process I focused on looking me as a dweller in the Rovaniemi landscape.

Due to the social isolation caused by the pandemic, my sense of time has begun to blur. My days lack the change of places and face to face social interaction, so many of the things I do seem forgettable. I noticed this acceleration of time as my bio-waste bin was filled strangely fast. It felt like I had just emptied the trash, although several days had gone unnoticed. I began to contemplate about the connection of materiality to the passage of time, and how I could depict it in my artwork.

The material for my artwork is something that regularly filled my bio-waste bin, blood orange peels. These little pieces of material serve as a measure of time, and they connect me to the surrounding society’s array of tasks - in Ingold’s words: to taskscape. The material also represents the complexity of the modern way of life. Our own mundane lives shape not only the landscape in which we live, but also the whole planet.

Dried blood orange peels, fishing line