17–21/04 ’23
Subjective Atlas of Finland
🕐 17 —21 April 2023
📍 Aalto University, Helsinki (FI)
🔗 https://mycourses.aalto.fi
🙏🏻 Arja Karhumaa
What is your lived experience of Finland? And how would you map that? the one-week-workshop ‘Subjective Atlas of Finland’ questions the very act of cartography and aims for more multi-vocal and pluri-diverse representations of a place during a collaborative process on the invitation of the Masters in Visual Communication of the Aalto University in Helsinki.
As a mix of Finnish and international students with time living here ranging from years to months, the participants explored their relationships with Finland through discussions, workshops and walking around the city. Sessions took place inside and outside the university, during which we captured social and urban phenomena, drew maps and designed alternative flags. Participants were stimulated to explore their own positionality through different mapping methodologies.
The subjective cartography give a sense of what each of the participants found interesting, surprising, positive, frustrating or nostalgic about their time in Finland with nature, landscapes and horizons having a strong presence, as is a sense of unease about Finland’s political future. During a walk around the centre we aimed to get lost in a familiar place, collecting colours which allowed for new reflections and playful encounters. We shared perceptions like finding gloves on the street, barbershop typography, natural plant dyes, the aesthetics of Finnish food, ‘kalsarikännit’ (pants drunk), personal encounters and queer spaces. (Rebekka Yallop, introduction)
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