Mushrooms and people is a story about a person’s life-long journey together with mushrooms, built in the form of an animation installation. The work reflects on the coexistence between mushrooms and humans, as well as the importance of mushroom growing culture to our relationship with nature and the skill of moving in the forest.

The work was inspired by Erika’s mother’s stories, where mushroom picking is intertwined with childhood memories of Karelian culture. Through the stories, a mental landscape is built, an imaginary map with which to move in the forests. In addition to where the mushrooms grow, the map shows what mushrooms were collected before and what foods were eaten. What kind of forests were there and what are they like now. What buildings were found in the forests and who lived in them. The map also tells what happened to those people. Some moved, some died. Some houses are now deserted. Some have new residents, some mushrooms, some people.

Through fungi, a wide information network opens up, not only in a biological, but also in a cultural-historical sense. By studying the culture of mushroom picking, we can find information about the changes in forests over the decades, and on the other hand, mushroom picking also involves a lot of tacit information about the home environment and the collection, growing and preparation of food.

Through the mushrooms, a gigantic web of many, countless objects and things opens up, a tangle of stories in the threads of which our own story is intricately entwined. The work lingers precisely at this intersection, where the human and the non-human meet.

Erika Weiste is a visual artist who works especially with installations, video and animation. Weiste has a master’s degree in art from Aalto University, and an animator degree from Edinburgh College of Art. In his works, Weiste versatilely combines painting and graphics with animation, video and recycled materials. His works have been exhibited in group and solo exhibitions in Finland and abroad, as well as presented at international festivals and on YLE.

Aki Viikilä is a visual artist who also works as a musician and composer. His work includes paintings and graphic design, compositions, music production and sound design for theater performances and short films.

Viikilä and Weiste have been working together for several years. In addition to nature themes, their works are united by multidisciplinary and spatial, as well as reflection on memories and the processes of time.