Katie Paterson: To Burn, Forest, Fire
Katie Paterson: To Burn, Forest, Fire
Sep
06
Sat
05:09 – 05:09
With: SIC
Drifts-festival 6.9.2025
The fifth edition of Drifts Festival is Unknown Territories: Forests, and it will be held in the Malmi district of Helsinki from August 14 to September 10, 2025.
Unknown Territories – Drifts Festival
Unknown Territories is a three-year artistic initiative that embarks on spiritual and geographical journeys across forests (2025), seas (2026), and archipelagos (2027). It centers on the concept of geographic exploration as a pathway to uncover hidden cultural terrains, from forgotten histories and Indigenous knowledge to practices, rituals, and memories entangled with nature.
In 2025, Unknown Territories: Forests confronts the devastating impacts of extractivism, capitalism, and urban expansion on forests, which are interwoven with cultural myths, Indigenous knowledge and biodiversity. In a time of ecological crisis, it envisions these living landscapes as spaces of resilience and radical imagination, opening pathways toward planetary futures where human and more-than-human coexist.
Katie Paterson: To Burn, Forest, Fire IHME Helsinki Commission 2021
As part of the festival, Katie Paterson’s To Burn, Forest, Fire IHME Helsinki Commission 2021 will be on display. The Commission is consisted of the scent of the first-ever forest on earth and the scent of the last forest of the age of climate crisis, made into incense and then burned across a variety of sites around the city of Helsinki in 1-30 September and 1 October, 2021. In connection to the art work there is a booklet published to present the scientific research behind the definitions of the forests and the scents. Essay in the booklet is written by professor David Haskell.
To Burn, Forest, Fire will take place at Artspace SIC, Vanha Helsingintie 24, on 14 August 2025. The festival offers all programmes free of charge and open to the public!