In her Arktikum Science Centre exhibition The Call of Things, artist Jessica Houston draws attention to the environmental distress of the North and South Poles with ‘talking objects’ and photographs that Houston took during her travels.
As viewers move through the exhibition, ‘calling’ the objects with their phones, oral narratives and field recordings related to each polar artefact sound out into the space. The contributors range across disciplines, including ecologists, Indigenous leaders, sea ice, philosophers, poets, whales, and academics.
“Knowledge of the environmental distress is produced across a human and more-than-human spectrum. It is situated and embedded, drawing upon convergences of multiple perspectives”, Houston describes.
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The Call of Things becomes a platform for the many people involved, and the exhibition emerges as an interactive collaboration.
Houston wants to provoke dialog about the material consequences of our relationship with nature. The Call of Things evokes the complex, interwoven events that have shaped the geography of the poles, and relate to the current condition of the environment.
The Call of Things
22.10.2020–28.2.2021
Arktikum Science Centre, Pohjoisranta 4, Rovaniemi, Finland
More information:
Artist Jessica Houston, info@jessicahouston.net , www.jessicahouston.net & www.thecallofthings.net
Exhibition designer Anna Hyvönen, Arctic Centre, firstname.surname@ulapland.fi, +358 40 4844 289
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