— PROJECT NAME
Metsäesitys ry & Siberian Flying Squirrels Papana & Norkko
— ROLE
Performer, producer, designer, writer, artist, flying squirrel
— IN COLLABORATION WITH
Katri Puranen & Liisa Pesonen
— DATE
2015--> Metsäesitys-working-group, performances: Zone 7 (2015), In Times (2016), Zone Z° (2017)
2019--> Flying Squirrels Papana & Norkko
— WEB PAGE FOR PAPANA & NORKKO
— WEB PAGE FOR METSÄESITYS
coming
Metsäesitys ry is an association which purpose is to contribute to the ecosocial reconstruction of Finnish society through the arts, especially through theatre and performing arts, teaching and education, journalism and interdisciplinary co-operation. The members of Metsäesitys ry are professionals in performing arts, journalism and pedagogy who have been working as a working group since 2015. The association was registered in 2023 to develop its activities and I am one of the founding members. The aim for 2025-2027 is to build a functioning production structure for the association, employ artists and to establish Metsäesitys as a player in the field of performing arts and the eco-socially sustainable transition in society.
Since 2019, the most visible form of action of Metsäesitys has been the fictional Siberian flying squirrels (liito-oravat) Papana and Norkko, who jumped from their home forest of Solkivuori (a collaborative flying squirrel management and conservation forest) into the human world to further their mission to stop the mass extinctions threatening humans and flying squirrels by developing human-squirrel co-operations. My role in this project is to embody the squirrel Papana, and to produce and implement the projects together with my working partner Katri Puranen (squirrel Norkko). In addition, the squirrels have a stylist, costume designer Liisa Pesonen
The squirrels have developed sustainability and future thinking skills, and have worked with a wide range of different kind of actors from art world to politics and the forestry sector. For example, the squirrels have interviewed parliament election candidates based in the National Forestry Strategy and each partie’s election programme (2019), collected seeds fora vibrant interspecies future in a Round Table Discussion together with brain researcher Katri Saarikivi and Sitra’s futures expert Mikko Dufva and one pine sapling from Vantaa together with Demos Helsinki’s Untitled Alliance (2020), they have worked and produced installations and performances in the Artists' Home Museums' “Time Machines and Utopias” – project (2021-2022), they have given a lecture for researchers (2021) and a workshop for students (2022) in the POLIMA project (Political Imagination and Alternative Futures) at the University of Turku and they keep on visiting the Forest Days (Metsäpäivät) organised by the Finnish Forestry Association (2020, 2022, 2023). The squirrels are also members of the UEF (University of Eastern Finland) Forest Relations Network and have been invited and are attending to the latest Forest Academy for Decision Makers (Päättäjien metsäakatemia), a networking event organised by Suomen Metsäyhdistys. The Squirrels' past projects can be explored in their online portfolio at www.papanajanorkko.fi. Future plans include educational projects about future thinking and active citizenship and a project to further the sustainability transition in Finnish forestry sector. The long-term aim of the squirrels is to be employed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.
At www.metsaesitys.wordpress.com, you can find the Metsäesitys portfolios for 2015-2019.