II. “North as such is art. Here nature and people get strength from each other, support each other [...]“, Leena Vuotovesi writes in the “Ii Biennale of Northern Environmental and Sculpture Art” catalogue. The biennale, at the moment held for the third time, is a meeting place for artists and the public interested in environmental art, land art and other nature or community based expressions. Arranger is KulttuuriKauppila Art Centre and the Ii municipality, that wants to develop its ecological and sustainable profile.
During ten days invited artists will, together with volunteers from Ii and elsewhere, produce environmental artworks that will be presented to the public on Friday evening 15/6. They will add to earlier artworks from 2008 and 2010 in the forest along the Ii River.
Maruyama Yoshiko: Leafboat. From the Ii Biennale 2010:
In connection with the Biennale, a seminar was held on Wednesday (13/6) with presentations by experienced environmental artist/professor Timo Jokela from Rovaniemi and Amy Dempsey, scholar and writer, author of the reference book “Destination Art”.
Timo Jokela at field work in Kandalaksha, here with artist Julia Solntseva. Photo Kenneth Mikko
The artists of this year’s biennale are Ole Wich (Faroe Islands), Hekla Dögg Jonsdottir (Iceland), Lena Stenberg (Sweden), Nikolai Fedorov (Russia), Serge Olivier Fokoua (Cameroon), Sanna Koivisto (Finland) and Timo Jokela (Finland), who is also the curator of the biennale.
http://www.artii.fi/index.htm
