5. – 28.9.2025, Hippolyte Studio

“I feel the cool water and the river’s current through my rubber boots. I bend down, immerse my hand in the water, lift up a sample bottle. Against the light the water looks yellowish. Nothing organic seems to move in it. Can water die? In what ways can we relate to dead water, when the activity of bacteria and microbes is an essential part of the forces that sustain life and keep us alive? What would happen if we understood the soil and water as our companions? Would the ethical, economic, and political privileges and primacy of human actors then be called into question?“

(Kittilä, 13 July 2021, excerpt from Mäkiranta’s research diary)

Mari Mäkiranta and the Flowing Waters collective’s exhibition explores the impact of mining on the riverine environments of the North. At its centre are performative photographic and video works, as well as soil and water samples collected from the areas of the Kittilä gold mine and the Kevitsa metal mine, to which the exhibition title also refers. The mines discharge their wastewater through pipelines into several rivers; the works in Of Soil and Water draw attention to the concern that even small concentrations of chemicals can be toxic to aquatic ecosystems. Finnish mining legislation does not define precise threshold values for the concentrations of wastewater released by mines, which enables their discharge almost without restriction into rivers inhabited by mussels, fish, and other living beings.

The video works on display combine the collective’s sampling rituals and walking performances, in which the effects of mining on nature become tangibly visible. The Kevitsa nickel-copper mine is located just over 30 kilometres north of Sodankylä, right on the boundary of a Natura 2000 area. The video work Orange Dust illustrates how pollutants from the mine spread beyond its fences into this protected area. In turn, the Kittilä gold mine channels its wastewater via a discharge pipeline into Loukinen, a tributary of the protected Ounasjoki River. The performance seen in A Twenty-Five Kilometre Walk took place on top of the discharge pipeline road, which had been constructed in nature without official permission. Through the performance, members of the collective opposed environmental destruction and expressed compassion towards nature.

Flowing Waters collective’s practice is situated within the tradition of activist art, which, in their case, means quietly attuning to nature. The exhibition makes visible the invisible yet ever-present threats, such as toxic concentrations in water and waste dust drifting in the air. Alongside the artworks, the exhibition also includes the research publication Orange Dust (2025), addressing art activism and northern nature, and written in collaboration with sociologist Vesa Puuronen.

Of Soil and Water invites reflection on what might happen if we abandoned the appropriation and exploitation of nature. Could our technological–economic relationship to nature be transformed into one of encounter and responsibility? Would we allow nature to care for us—and would we know how to care for it?

Mari Mäkiranta (b. 1975, Oulu) is an artist-researcher based in Northern Finland and the director of Edges of Artivism—Art, Activism and Gendered Violence (2021–2026), a project funded by the Kone Foundation. Her work is characterised by an activist and collective approach, positioned between moving image and photography and performance. Mäkiranta holds a Doctorate in Fine Arts and is Adjunct Professor in Visual Culture Studies. She works as Associate Professor at the Faculty of Art and Design at the University of Lapland. The works in the exhibition Of Soil and Water have been made in collaboration with the Flowing Waters collective, which includes Mäkiranta herself, a sociologist, a hydrobiologist, and local experts by experience.