correspondence with
Alma Heikkilä

When standing in front of your large-scale artworks, one can dive into worlds usually hidden from the human eye. Observers can meet there with slime molds, mycelia, bacteria, mosses, soil dwellers, lichen, fungi, polypores, and many others. What aspects of forest microbial communities spark your curiosity most? Have you recently discovered something new or surprising about forest soil? What thoughts or questions are you bringing with you to the exhibition?

Alma: I am interested in thinking about the earth, the soil as a whole, with its myriad interactions, as a kind of magical dark mass. I recently read Juha Kauppinen's book Kertomus maasta (A Story on the Earth), and I was particularly interested in what carbon sequestration actually is.

Could you describe how you come to know the different species you work with in your projects? What kinds of sources, practices, or possibly habits do you develop for yourself when starting a new project?

I like reading books and research articles. When I'm out and about, I check out different ways of life and traces, and find out what species there are and what their lives are like. I try to think of ways to better experience, understand, and imagine the forest environment beyond just trees and events visible to the human eye. I ponder how to experience the diverse collaborations and processes taking place in the soil as part of my own shared life. Artistic work with materials is also an experiment. It is just as exciting to read about the life of the soil as it is to paint and see how the works begin to take shape. 

You were taking part in our last group exhibition Communities of Coexistence two years ago, and since then, you've been involved in a residency at the Centre for the Social Study of Microbes (CSSM) at the University of Helsinki. Can you share more about your experience collaborating with CSSM? What was the residency like, and how does the center approach research? Specifically, what role do artists play in this interdisciplinary environment?

I was in residence for six months, during which time I was able to participate in all CSSM activities, meetings, workshops, reading circles, etc. At the same time, I got to know the research community and the activities of the University of Helsinki. The experience was very enjoyable. I was very surprised at how interested and knowledgeable people there were about visual arts. My previous experiences with researchers have not been nearly as equal. CSSM is truly a place where a lot is happening, and it has succeeded in creating an incredibly international community with a tremendous desire to learn new ways of thinking. In many ways, it feels like a place where very topical and new perspectives are initiated and woven together.

A couple of years ago, you made the decision to redirect your exhibition fee towards purchasing an 11-hectare old-growth forest in Eastern Finland. What led to that decision? Can you describe the forest itself—what’s it like to be there? And how is the forest doing now?

Kiasma and the Kordelin Foundation invited me to hold an exhibition in which I explored how life always takes place somewhere (in the body/in material/in the world/in the masses/in the sphere of life), as part of other life and dependent on it. I reflected on the processes involved in organizing an exhibition in a large institution, which also includes activities that may be harmful to life, such as emissions from flights, energy consumption, and the use of various materials. I was particularly inspired by the forest ecosystem. The fee for the exhibition was reasonable, so I decided to use it to purchase a forest. Santtu Kareksela and Antti Majava helped me find the right forest as experts. The forest now serves as a kind of reserve for diversity and as a carbon sink for the emissions produced by the work. The forest is located in Ryläys, Koli. I was excited by the historical connection to the work of Finnish Golden Age painters depicting the landscapes of Koli. Artists have played a role in Finnish history in creating cultural identity and also in protecting forests and highlighting values other than economic ones.

One feels good in the forest and it is easy to visit, as the municipality of Kontiolahti maintains a hut there and a nature trail runs through it. The scenery is magnificent, and because the plot is narrow and located at different heights, there are many different types of nature habitats to see.

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​Artworks made by Alma Heikkilä are often attempts to depict things that cannot be experienced through the human body and its senses. These things include microbial life forms that are too small to be consciously encountered in everyday life; the forest ecosystems where important processes are located underground and inside plants; and many large-scale phenomena that happen at such speeds and scales that they are beyond our comprehension. 

In spite of their gravity / complexity / impenetrability, Alma often returns to big questions like: What is life? What is it to be a human? What is a human? How does the body function together with other bodies and lifeforms? What does it mean to say that life in the biosphere is symbiotic? She seeks ways to articulate the deep dependencies of humankind. In her work, Alma wishes to make space and time for wondering and digesting contemporary scientific perspectives. She does this mainly through developing painting and installation-based works with paint and plaster, which she understands as collaborations between her; the materials; and other artists and thinkers. 

Given the planet is mired in several ecological crises that will enormously impact the future, Alma tries to foster different ways of working, acting, and thinking when approaching art through life and practice. This impacts how she makes decisions about working methods, materials (with an awareness around scarcity), and travel (for example, she endeavours not to fly).These small beginnings are ways to acknowledge and work against dominant values embedded in the cultural field that deeply conflict with scientific knowledge about the current nature of our lives. One reason for the difficulties around reacting to environmental problems is that we don’t see our dependency on other life forms and processes. 

Alma is a founding member of Mustarinda, an association of artists and scientists. The work and the time spent with the Mustarinda group has had an invaluable impact on her artistic practice. 

www.almaheikkila.net