“The Land Body Ecologies Festival”: Curating Solastalgia
Since 2021 the Land Body Ecologies collective has been researching trauma among communities that experience land dependence, their transdisciplinary work spanning five regional ‘Hubs’: the Mau Forest Hub (2); the Bannerghatta Hub (2); the Arctic Hub (3); the Bwindi Hub (4); and the London Hub (5) at Wellcome (6). A three-year residency at the Wellcome Trust in London has flourished into a free four-day Festival addressing the deep connections between mental health and ecosystem health.
Solastalgia is Land Body Ecologies’ guiding concept. It is the “homesickness you have when you’re at home, and home is leaving you”, describes Glenn Albrecht, the Australian academic and philosopher who coined the term in 2003. In the Festival’s keynote speech, Albrecht brings up his prior fieldwork in New South Wales on the destructive impacts of large-scale mining in the Upper Hunter Valley for the Wonnarua community’s culture and livelihoods. From this case study he identified the need to articulate the particular mental health concerns in the Anthropocene — our present geologic era, characterised by man-led environmental degradation.
It is thus fitting for the Festival’s private launch to feature a musical instrument facing cultural extinction. Faqir Zulfiqar, a Sindhi folk musician from Pakistan, plays traditional songs on the borindo, a 6000-year old small wind instrument made of clay and based on the shape of an insect’s nest. The delicate, sorrowful sounds from Zulfiqar's performance offer us excerpts of Microtonal(7). For the latter, interactive arts studio Invisible Flock collaborated with master potter Allah Jurio, one of the sole living borindo makers, to generate 200 unique sine waves tuned to the resonant frequency of 200 individual vessels, showcasing the full vitality of this ancient art form.
October 2024
Isabelle Bollekens
Isabelle Bollekens is a London-based writer of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction essays, interested in the themes of identity, the bodily, cultural heritage, and human rights.
The following piece recounts the author’s individual experience and critique of the Land Body Ecologies Festival held at the Wellcome Collection in London, UK between the 22nd and 25th of June 2023.
The author wishes to acknowledge the Land Body Ecologies team for their fact-checking contributions and Diana Elena Stoica from ArtPulse (Human Rights Pulse) for her editorial support.
Upon entering the Wellcome Collection, on the left-hand side, thirty-seven freestanding walking sticks introduce us to the Land Body Ecologies Festival: Ovdavázzit - Forewalkers, by Sámi artists and activists Jenni Laiti and Outi Pieski. Drawing on local craftsmanship, Laiti and Pieski have carved the tall sticks from the Arctic’s wood to retrace ancestral presences across Sápmi land. But the installation’s prominent placement in the public hallway of the English museum adds another critical layer. In the midst of their community’s ongoing struggle towards self-governance within the Finnish state and against extractivist interests, the artists ask: “Who has the right to determine the borders of Sámi land and govern inside those borders?” (1) Who gets to occupy space?
“Ovdavázzit - Forewalkers”, Jenni Laiti and Outi Pieski. Image credit: Isabelle Bollekens
Embodiments of solastalgia from across the Hubs follow on the Collection’s second floor in the Stories of Entanglement exhibition.(8)
Multimedia displays inform on loss. Old wooden fishing tools from the Arctic Hub retrieved by curator Kaisa Kerätär and sociologist Dr. Outi Autti have been clustered in front of Matti Saanio’s series That's What the Government Decided (9) — black-and-white photographs from postwar Lapland of stark, desolate landscapes like abandoned warehouses and construction sites devoid of people. It’s a visual record of the wiping out of small-scale farming under the Kemihaara Hydrodam Project. On a small screen, scrolling sentences quote conversations between Dr. Autti and former residents who lived by the Kemijoki and Iijoki in the 60s and 70s, and who suffered alienation from the damming of the rivers’ waters. Instead of replicating the conventional style of third-party interpretation, the exhibition text relies solely on the subjects’ voices. The recuperated tactile, visual and textual forms come together to capture the concurrent severance from land and from self.
“Stories of Entanglement”: evidence of loss, grief, preservation
Geographical borders do not dictate the layout: not all exhibits are regrouped per Hub. The majority are individually spread out across the soft-lit space on asymmetrically stacked curvilinear bases. The forum-like configuration allows visitors to appreciate the specificities of each region, and also to consider cross-cultural dialogues.
Natural resources from the Hubs’ ecosystems are at the forefront: in the Bannerghatta Hub's replica of a chandrike as made by bamboo weavers in Kolar; in the preserved native seeds from the Bannerghatta Forest; in the traditional baskets woven by Batwa community members from the Bwindi Forest. Local plant materials are celebrated for their functional roles in subsistence practices, for their aesthetic values in traditional craftsmanship, and for their emblematic qualities regarding peoples’ ties with their lands — the tangible stands for the spiritual.
On the left: Arctic Hub layout with wooden fishing tools, a backpack made from birch bark from Raimo Autti, and a hundred-year old traditional fishing net with cork floats, in front of Matti Saanio’s “That’s What the Government Decided”. On the right: Arctic Hub screen with quotes from Dr. Outi Autti’s research, alongside wooden lures from Antti Ylönen. Images Credit: Isabelle Bollekens
Workshops: connecting through the senses
The exhibits come alive in the Festival’s workshops. In Stories of Entanglement, the recorded sounds of woodwork and of the chanting voice of an Ogiek woman accompany the layout of an in-progress beehive. The same hollow log carvings are then used in Ogiek Hive-Making, where Ogiek Elder John Sironga demonstrates customary hive-building techniques to educate on the essential role of honey in his community’s diet, medicinal, and ceremonial practices.
In the intimacy of the workshop setting, visitors can connect in live time with the resources and their custodians through speech, touch, scent and taste — whether when sampling Siwakorn ‘Swae’ Odochao’s alternative coffee production Lazy Man Coffee from Thailand, or when trying Vishalakshi Padmanabhan’s seasonal products from her farming Buffalo Back Collective from India. The interactive and multi-sensory curation effectively invites empathetic responses.
Deprivation is the common thread. Today the Batwa community of Kanungu District only have access to their ancestral lands for tourism performances. When the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest was declared a national park in 1991, the Ugandan government violently expelled the Batwa from their home, with the caveat of employment in the local tourism industry. Similarly, when Bannerghatta was declared an eco-sensitive zone in the 70s under India’s stringent legislation, the forest department forcibly shut out the tribes and communities from the forest, disrupting their livelihoods, and eroding their cultural identity. With increasing human-elephant conflict and disruptive land change patterns, the communities have shifted their economic activity to silkworm rearing for yarn production. Stories of Entanglement pays tribute to strategies of resilience and adaptation against disrespect and disrepair.
The Hub communities lead the artistic output. From the table at the centre of the forum, we can look through booklets with reprints of photographs. At the fieldwork stage, Quicksand equipped the Hubs with Polaroid cameras for locals to capture “places and memories that are important for them” and that they “would like to communicate to outsiders”. The resulting images — with subject matters ranging from personal livestock, to individual trees, to faces of neighbours and relatives — contain the subjective ties to the land. The photographers’ commentaries are transcribed in the respective native languages for local transmission, and then translated into English for the audience’s sake.
References:
-
As quoted in: https://www.jennilaiti.com/ovdavzzitforewalkers
-
Anchored by the Ogiek Peoples’ Development Programme (Kenya).
-
In the Bannerghatta National Park, anchored by Quicksand (India).
-
Anchored by Waria (Finland).
-
In the forests of Ekyuya, Semuliki, Bwindi, and Mgahinga in South West Uganda, anchored by Action for Batwa Empowerment Group (Kanungu, Uganda).
-
At the Wellcome Trust in London, anchored by Invisible Flock (UK) and Minority Rights Group International.
-
Exhibited at the Crypt Gallery in St Pancras New Church.
-
Designed and produced by Quicksand, Invisible Flock and Maitreyee Narendra.
-
Courtesy of The Finnish Museum of Photography, Rovaniemi Art Museum, and the Regional Museum of Lapland.
-
Translation by Sylvia Kokunda, CEO of Action for Batwa Empowerment Group and core team member of Land Body Ecologies.
-
By British field recordist Chris Watson, with Invisible Flock.
-
Daniel Kobei, Emily Katais, Samson Luari, and John Sironga.
-
Ogiek Peoples’ Development Programme.
-
As recognised in 2017 by the African Court of Human Rights.
-
Also known as Karen, and as Ban Nong Tao.
Storytelling: solastalgia, in their own words
The Festival highlights the power of storytelling as an advocacy space where the political and the individual intersect. During Ogiek Storytelling, a small group of us, seated in the comfortable bean bags and sofas of the Reading Room, gather round the stage where four Ogiek representatives (12) in their ceremonial cloaks voice their narratives. We hear from OPDP (13) founder and executive director and core Land Body Ecologies team member Daniel Kobei, who sheds light on the Ogiek’s forced eviction from the Mau Forest by the Kenya Forestry Service in 2009. He recounts subsequent cases of marginalisation in the national healthcare system: when members of the community travelled to urban areas for health checks, city doctors failed to properly diagnose their symptoms of psychological trauma. Currently the group is still fighting for the government to enforce their right to reparations (14).
Beyond the Hubs’ teams, other partners in the panel talks contextualise systemic oppressions. In Culture Loss and Intergenerational Trauma, academic Dr. Nicole Redvers from the Deninu K’ue First Nations brings forth the scope of disenfranchisement for Indigenous communities in subarctic Canada, ranging from the scars of the past residential schools system, to the widespread polluting of their territories by present-day oil and mining projects. Farmer Siwakorn Odochao speaks on the Pgak’yau’s (15) displacement from their ancestral forest Kaeng Krachan in Thailand, previously under colonial Britain’s timber logging, then under the national forestry practices over the last decade — in 2011, forestry officials burnt down the bamboo homes of the Karen to evict the latter from the area. Modern extractivism and conservation “without people” operate on top of colonialism’s legacies, and create new forms of persecution.
The deeply personal emerges from the speakers’ accounts. In 2014 community rights defender Porlajee “Billy” Rakchongcharoen was declared missing from the Kaeng Krachan Park. In 2019 his remains were found in an oil tank inside the territory. Thai forestry officials have been charged twice in national courts — yet acquitted each time — with Billy’s kidnapping and murder. As Odochao recounts these events, he stops midway in his speech, in front of the presentation slide with a photograph of Billy and his family. “Sorry. Because he is my friend.”
Yet the stories also bear hope and resistance. In his coffee production, Odochao follows the spirit of his ancestors’ slow, small-scale, rotational farming traditions as an alternative to unsustainable industrial agriculture. With the material support of the Land Body Ecologies project, the Ogiek are developing a multipurpose Cultural Centre — to serve as a museum, a library, a performance site, and more — where youth and Elders can reconnect with their heritage and each other, as oral tradition itself is practised for intergenerational bonding. Dr. Redvers, as the director of Indigenous Planetary Health, describes urban land-based healing camps in northwest Canada, where Indigenous stewards share modern epigenetics and traditional medicine practices with First Nations youth to address homelessness and substance abuse. Local people hold the relevant knowledge of their lands and bodies to foster their own restoration solutions. In light of their realities, their exclusion from high-level decision-making comes across all the more untenable.
Bamboo ‘chandrike’ (frame for silkworm cocoons) replica from Bannerghatta Hub, front and back. Images Credit: Isabelle Bollekens
Woven baskets by Kesiime Rosette, Elivera Turyomurugyendo, Kapere Eliphazi, Ainembabazi Naomi and Nyamihanda Gladys from Bwindi Hub. Images Credit: Isabelle Bollekens
Native seeds from Bannerghatta Hub, with ragi (finger millet), cowpea, jowar, castor bean, hyacinth bean, horse gram, brown mustard, and jackfruit.
Creative research: how to listen deeply to a place
The Festival’s panel talks mirror the Land Body Ecologies’ interactive ethos. Artist Ben Eaton opens Podcast as Method for Health and Climate Research with a demonstration: he directs us to cup our hands behind our ears, and to silently pan our heads to pick up the different frequencies around the Henry Wellcome Auditorium. Samson Luari comments that the Ogiek navigate the Mau Forest in similar ways by following birdsong. Sound anchors us to our surroundings.
As the team explored creative techniques for researching solastalgia, audio recording, as part of a long-term practice of Invisible Flock, turned out insightful for its discrete, emergent and revealing qualities. The studios trained Hub members on open-field technology for the latter to record far and wide their own environments. Relationships of trust were fostered organically over several years before actual recording took place. The communities are credited as experts, and their work as evidence.
The final product: the Land Body Ecologies podcast. The A-side contains the human sounds of peoples engaging with their lands. An Elder woman from Karnataka, Thayimuthamma, solemnly sings the ragi crop song in her native language Kannada, in a slightly hoarse voice indicative of her nonagenarian status, lamenting the disappearance of traditional agriculture and of the community’s relationship with the land. A group of Batwa women bring their musical tradition through a call-and-response grief song in Rutwa, usually performed as a tourist cultural act in the forest, but recorded in this instance in their new urban settlements where they face discrimination. In a town clearing, the lead singer and the responding choir echo in high-pitched voices their mourning: “our home is in the park, that is where we lived, and this, where we are, is not our home; we had never imagined ourselves here, that we would leave our home” (10).
The podcast’s B-side is composed entirely of sounds from the land itself, free of any explanation, the raw forms trusted to hold sufficient weight. The Festival’s layout reflects this listening exercise: the loud-speakers for Virran Mukana (11) occupying the Collection’s main stairway convey the acoustic distortion of the Kemijoki waters under the damming project. At each floor level we can experience a new layer of recordings from the river: the stream’s flows and ice crackles become progressively muffled by the metallic churning of the hydrodam’s turbine. Sound is also pollution.
Cover and inside pages with English translation of “Photos by Violet” from the Bwindi Hub. Images Credit: Isabelle Bollekens
External collaborating artists play a supporting role in bringing the heritage to an international platform. Five clay pots by Scotland-based potter Sean Kingsley replicate those used by Bannerghatta farmers for the storage and growth of ragi crops. Beaded honeybees by London-based artist Claire de Waard have been embroidered by Ogiek member Emily Katais on an Ogiek ceremonial cloak, symbolising the Indigenous group’s traditional beekeeper role in the Mau Forest: the term ‘Ogiek’ literally translates to ‘caretaker of the flora and fauna’.
Woven baskets by Kesiime Rosette, Elivera Turyomurugyendo, Kapere Eliphazi, Ainembabazi Naomi and Nyamihanda Gladys from Bwindi Hub. Images Credit: Isabelle Bollekens
Bannerghatta clay pot replicas by Sean Kingsley. Image Credit: Isabelle Bollekens
Ogiek ceremonial cloak embroidered by Emily Katais from Mau Forest Hub. Image Credit: Isabelle Bollekens
In-progress Ogiek beehive in “Stories of Entanglement”: hollow log carvings, two axes, and wood shavings, with a small microphone placed next to the layout. Image Credit: Isabelle Bollekens
Closeup of cloak with embroidered honeybee beads by Claire de Waard. Image Credit: Isabelle Bollekens
