Single channel video, 16:9
Dur: 00:10:56 (loop)
Sound design: Michael Palace and Mari Keski-Korsu from sounds recorded in Storflaket mire
Lidar images: Michael Palace

Walking with Permafrost More-than-Human is a video piece that looks into encountering the microbial life of permafrost thaw. The ancient microbes are related with more-than-human, empathic walking methodologies that include hours of observing them meditatively under a microscope and transforming their movements into another scale on the permafrost mire within human body; barefoot walking in different seasons which are in change. The work speaks about the inevitable impacts and encounters of the climate warming, intimate scales of these impacts in the New Arctic and elsewhere, shared thermal experience and possible risks of unknown bacteria and viruses. Working side by side with finding of natural sciences on a field research site, it ads a dimension and proposal of ritualisation to what is currently known about permafrost microbial life.

The piece is realised in Storflaket mire in North Sápmi, Sweden – I am thankful to all the mire critters present. Thank you to Abisko Scientific Research Station (Polarforskningssekreteriat), Kone Foundation and Aalto University, Department of Art and Media / RAT for support. Thank you to Erich Berger and Changing Perspectives research group.

The work is a part of Mari Keski-Korsu’s artistic doctoral research, which investigates the role of more-than-human rituals and the changes within them during polycrisis. The video was premiered in Hanaholmen Swedish-Finnish Culture Centre, Espoo, Finland in exhibition called Walks in the Steam of Cryosphere 13.9.-27.10.2024. The exhibition was supported by Finnish Heritage Agency, Bioart Society and Aalto University. Thank you to Hanaholmen curator Aino Kostiainen. The video was exhibited in Photo North’s More-than-Planet – Earth Gazes Back exhibition in Oulu, Finland 23.9.2024 – 19.1.2025.