Primary Succession
VIDEO INSTALLATION, 2023
Primary Succession (Primaarisukkessio) is a two-channel video installation which deals with the infrastructure of presenting, experiencing and modifying nature. In the installation a marine national park appears as a historical weave of different production systems and ideologies.
How is the perceived landscape limited ideologically and physically, and what kind of value systems guide our way of experiencing, modifying and valuing our environment? The archipelago is an example of a landscape, where settlement, nature tourism with its structures, the ideal image of “pristine nature” with its garbage collection teams, the everpresent human influence, and history form mutually incompatible, contradictory and mutually invisible islands.
Installed in Gallery Sculptor, Helsinki, June 2023
Installed in Salo Art Museum, Salo, January–April 2024
As a biological concept, primary succession refers to the process of developing habitats, in which species take over a new area of land that has been exposed, for example, due to uplift. In succession, the mix of species grows and changes until it reaches a state of equilibrium – unless the conditions change. Like a brisk gardener, the human intervenes in this as he sees fit, sometimes finding justification in immediate benefit, sometimes in a sense of moral obligation stretching back to the ice age.
The first version of the work was exhibited in Gallery Sculptor in 2023. In 2024 a revised edition was produced for the exhibition in Salo Art Museum.