Taattisten Tila Residency

Tuuli Tool - A Survey of Wind Patterns around Taattisten Lake

Wind is a powerful force of nature, shaping the landscape with its constant influence. As the wind passes through the landscape, it leaves clues and signs across vegetation, the water, and the land. For example, deciduous trees tend to grow more thickly towards the prevailing wind and more faintly away from it. On a calm day, the faintest gust of wind can be seen across the darkest patches of the Taattisten lake.

Openings at the farm create wind tunnels, pushing the tall grass permanently sideways. Noticing these clues, we wanted to make the wind audible to test our observations, but to also share them with passers-by and invite them to pause, listen and notice the signs themselves. We took raw clay from the lake and turned it into wind whistles that are hung on trees and across poles. When the wind is just right the whistles hum away validating our observations.

A Thousand Lakes

In our second project we developed at Taattisten Tila we were inspired by the coastline of the archipelago with its small islands linked by bridges, the large horizontal openings of the mainland, and the abundant sprinkles of blue lakes across the land. No wonder that Finland has been awarded the moniker “land of a thousand lakes”.

During our residency we adopted a Japanese ceramics technique called nerikomi. It involves layering multiple colours of clay to form a tiled image, which is then stretched into a shape. In this particular piece a pixelated depiction of Sarkka, a neighbouring island, can be seen. Making the nerikomi block with this labour intensive process allowed us to get to know the surrounding area through the materiality of clay.