TERIKE HAAPOJA

ABOUT

STATEMENT

STATEMENT

I find our relationship with the non-human world as a fundamental, and fundamentally political question, perhaps the most important question of our times. Our economy is based on natural resources, our well-being on the vitality of other species, our politics on sharing the goods that non-humans provide us. From forestry to farming, from medicine to the production of commodities – the non-human world is always there, as a material, as an object, as a victim, as a companion, as a threat, as an allie.

Environmental crises has forced us to view the whole of human culture from the point of view of collaboration and interaction with the non-human world. This viewpoint challenges our traditional understanding of what is a community, what a dialogue, and to whom are we responsible for in our actions. In 21st century western society science is the most influental intermediator of this interaction. Scientific investigation not only brings out new discoveries of these relationships, but also participates in the construction of those relations. And science is unavoidable, when we deal with nature – and that's just what we do when we deal with leather bags, or wood prices, or pet food, or travelling, or immigration politics, or cancer treatment.

What do we know about this other, that is present whenever we act? How do we know about this other? What laws, ethics, possibilities and technologies determine our encounter with this other? And: can the natural word be described in terms of I and the other in the first place?

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My work is motivated by existential questions of what it is to be in this world as a mortal, emotional, social creature, as well as political questions of how could we live among other species in a more sustainable way. The way in which technology structures our experience of the world and our relations with the non—humans is central to my work. I work by creating thematic exhibitions that consist of several works, and which continue to develope each time exhibited. My artistic practice is characterized by interdisciplinarity and collaboration with scientists and professionals from other fields of art.

I would describe my work not as the work of a researcher, nor as the work of a media artist, but that of a poet. The movement between the metaphor, or story, and the documentation, the fact, is where this poetics takes place. Expressing something about the inner reality - life as experienced - is as important as investigating the realm of the physical - life as observed. And though I use scientific methods and technologies of ”the rational” as interfaces, I belive that if I loose the poetic, I will also loose the knowledge.

In my artistic PhD research ”Technologies of encounter” (Academy of Fine Art in Finland 2007-) I look for relations between philosophy of technology and environmental ethics with art practices. The research is not an explanation of, or a receipe for my art work, but rather a parallel practice, where the questions brought up by my work as an artist can be investigated in a more explicit way. How do new scientific discoveries change our understanding of the encounter bethween the viewer and the art work, or the agency of the artist, or the distinction between form and content? How are nature scientific models implicit in the ways we make art and talk about it? How to challenge the idelologies of manipulation and control over nature that are imbedded in the technologies we use in art?

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