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Jessica Koivistoinen is one of the two artists exhibiting new works on this year’s Barefoot Path exhibition. As you might already know for the information in this webpage and for the interview we published with the curator of the exhibition Sandra Nyberg, the team behind Barefoot Path decided to put the path in resting mode for 2022.

After 10 years of exhibitions, as the number of visitors have grown year after year, the team started observing the human impact on the forest area that hosts the path. Because of these observations, they decided to act responsibly and put Barefoot Path in resting mode, giving themselves time to reflect about this impact, and how to run the exhibition sustainably into the future. 

In this context, Jessica’s work suits this exceptional moment for the path extremely well. Her work, Oriolus oriolus, consists of two different elements: a post box where the visitors can find a pair of binoculars to observe the forest from the side of the road, and a series of sculptures placed on the limits of the forest that contains the Barefoot Path. On one hand, you can enjoy her sculptures from the sandy road without even entering the path itself, reducing the possible impact of your visit to a minimum. And on the other hand, her sculptures are to be spotted between the branches with a pair of binoculars. This, connects the work with her growing interest in bird watching (as we will discover with the interview below), as well as it becomes a window to reflect about observing nature without disturbing it, something intimately interlaced with the spirit of the Barefoot Path this 2022.

Jessica arrived in Korpo for the first time in November 2021 for a residency in the fabulous AARK (Archipelago Art Residency in Korpo). While here, her recent passion for bird-watching inspired her to start a series of abstract paintings from details of some of the birds she observes. A few months later, in summer 2022, her works can be seen all over Korpo in different art and cultural projects: in the exhibition Migration in Skärgårdscentrum Korpoström, as a part of a memory interactive game developed by Skärgårdshavets Unesco biosfärområde, Biosfärakademin, as a teaching material for kids on the school and kindergarten, and on Barefoot path. She has also led workshops on the kid’s lab at Skärgårdscentrum Korpoström.

For all these reasons, interviewing her for this series of articles about the Barefoot Path is super exciting to us. So without further ado, let’s get to the interview.

Jessica Koivistoinen with a monocular to observe birds

Jessica Koivistoinen

Artist

My works, made with different techniques, are like abstract notes about watching birds or things I’ve learned about their habits and features related to plumage. They are colorful and often detailed, just like the birds are.

/ Hello Jessica. As a child, you visited Korpo many times, but it was not until last November that you visited the island again as an adult to be part of the AARK residency in Korpo. Can you tell us what expectations you had before coming here, how long time did you spend on the residency, what did you do here and what this residency meant to you?

Hello Aaron! After almost half a year, thinking about my plans for that two-week residency period feels a bit funny. I was planning to focus heavily on working and having a quite strict schedule. Well… quite soon after arriving to lovely AARK, I realized how tired I was and how good it felt to let myself wander around places nearby and just rest. I was also watching birds as much I could. The greatest finding was in Nauvo where I saw an Ural Owl.

After one week resting and having lovely walks, I had an idea to paint abstract birds and use paintings as a Christmas calendar for my friends in social media. That was a start of a big chain reaction! So, I have to say that AARK has a very big impact in my artist work!

/ I understand that years ago you worked as assistant for Sandra Nyberg, and that once here you invited her over to visit you in the residency. How did that visit go? Was it then that your participation on both the barefoot Path and in the exhibition “Migration” on Skärgårdscentrum Korpoström started?

Yes! I met Sandra for the first time when I was studying in Turku UAS’ Arts Academy, and there was a collaboration with artists and art students called In Public, In Particular (IPIP). Once here, I thought it would be nice to meet again, so invited her to AARK. While drinking tea and talking, I told about my bird watching hobby and future bird-themed exhibitions in 2022. One of my ideas was to paint all the birds I observed during the coming year in the same abstract style as I had painted in my Christmas calendar. Honestly, abstract paintings have helped me a lot in learning to identify birds!

Sandra told about Skärgårdscentrum Korpoström’s upcoming Migration exhibition, for which she had been asked to be curator. She told what kind of works would be in the exhibition and how they dealt with migration in different ways. However, a bird-themed piece was missing from the works, and birds are a strong part of the migration theme. So it was a funny coincidence that I had started painting birds only a few days before we met and that they were like a missing piece in the exhibition.

/ Did you visited the Barefoot Path prior to your participation on the exhibition?

Yes, I visited the Barefoot Path for the first time when I was in AARK’s residency. 

/ What are the impressions that you got from that visit?

There were no other people on the path and I could walk alone, looking at the works and the forest in peace with no hurry. I really liked the art works and how they communicated with the surrounding forest. It was great to feel like I was more in the forest than in an exhibition, so I paid attention to how I walked in the area. If the path was a little unclear at some point, I felt a little uncertain about whether I could continue going wherever I wanted.

Jessica Koivistoinen standing by her work at Barefoot Path
Jessica taught me a bird-watching technique to take pictures with the phone camera through the binoculars

/ How do you personally see the process that the Barefoot Path is undergoing this 2022? How does your work relate to that process/reflection?

I think actions like this are important messages from people to others. For some reason, we seem to think that limitations don’t apply to us, and the idea of who really can set limits is strange. Although we see nature changing due to the power of human influence, it seems that some people do not know how to take the matter seriously and set limits independently without being specifically ordered to do so. I think that’s sad and makes me worried.

I was very happy when Sandra asked me to include the work for this year. For a long time I have been attracted by the idea of making a work that is somehow different to look at and even difficult to see, so the concept of a resting forest supported this theme well. After discussing the place of the piece in the forest, Sandra suggested using binoculars as part of viewing the piece, and I think that was the perfect idea. It’s funny that I didn’t think of it myself, even though I spend most of my time with binoculars hanging around my neck. Ha ha!

/ Talking about birdwatching. On the webpage, we can read that “a small-scale hobby that has literally developed into a way of life in a surprisingly short time”. Could you tell us more about it? How did this hobby start and what it means to you and how it this passion inform your art nowadays?

Well, at first I was thinking of buying binoculars and wanted to learn to identify more birds in addition to what I already knew. In autumn 2021 I joined a bird watching walk organized by the Turku Ornithological Association, and soon I found myself interested in bird ringing and bird monitoring by different counting around the year. That all happened very quick!
At the moment, I am training to become a prey bird ringer, which takes a LOT of time. Time is spent looking for bird nests, mapping new areas, and also ringing during the summer. In order to get my own ringing permit in the future, I need to be able to identify the most common resident and migratory birds found in Finland very well. There are about 240 species in total, so there is plenty to learn with males, females, young birds etc.!

I think that if I make art about birds or nature, it is important for me to participate in birdwatching and spend a lot of time in nature. When I know what changes are happening in nature, I can also position myself to protect it and speak for it. It might be easier to just paint birds in my studio, but I’m totally in love with my new lifestyle, and it’s hard to believe that my life will ever go back to the way it was before.

/ Can you tell us what the name of your work (Oriolus oriolus) makes reference to?

Oriolus oriolus is the scientific name of the Eurasian Golden Oriole (kuhankeittäjä). Kuhankeittäjä is a colorful migratory bird that is now classified as endangered in Finland.

There are many people who do not know most of our birds. The thought that some species are in danger of disappearing as unknown is sad in my opinion. I hope that my abstract paintings and sculptures will arouse people’s curiosity to study the birds that represent them, so that they understand how wonderful birdlife we have and how important it is to protect it.

/ Is there anything else you would like to tell to the readers of this article?

I encourage all people to stop and observe not only birds but also insects, plants and trees etc. It’s okay if you don’t recognize any of them. You can just count how many ones you see and name the ones you know. Maybe you can get more interested and want to learn to recognize more of them. By doing this, I have found a lot to do and observe wherever I go, so it feels like there are new adventures to be discovered everywhere!


Thank you Jessica for this interview, for your kindness and for all the inspiration that you have spread around our community.

You can find the interview with Sandra Nyberg, curator of the project, on this link.

If you are interested in visiting Barefoot Path this year, you can check out the list of artists that are exhibited in 2022 on our homepage. From there, you can read a description and get a glimpse of how each work looks on our 2022 exhibition page. And if you want to know how to arrive to barefoot Path, please visit about us.

In 2021, Barefoot Path celebrated 10 years of continuous art exhibitions inside a forest area in Österretais. Over the years, this unique exhibition has attracted more and more visitors willing to experience the interconnection between contemporary art and Nature.

Now, in summer 2022, Barefoot Path has been put under “resting mode” after the team that manages it, started noticing increasing signs of human impact in the forest that hosts the exhibition.

We decided to have a conversation with Sandra Nyberg, curator of the exhibition, so she could explain first hand what is happening in Barefoot Path, and what does the future holds for this extraordinary project.

Interview with Sandra Nyberg, curator

Sandra Nyberg Barefoot Path 2021

Sandra Nyberg

Curator

Sandra Nyberg often works with site-specific installations around the world. She is specifically interested in the idea of site-specific and public intervention; creating works that are integrated with their surroundings while exploring local cultural, political, sociological and/or historical contexts.

/ Hello Sandra. The Barefoot Path celebrated its 10 years anniversary in 2021. That sounds like a great milestone for an art exhibition on a forest area in the countryside. Can you speak about these 10 years?

The exhibition started on a grassroot level and has since been allowed to grow quite organically throughout the years. We have had to work within our limited resources – both physically and financially – but we have managed to slowly grow and create something long-lasting and well-known. Our focus has always been on quality over quantity, but even so, the exhibition has hosted over 50 artworks by a selection of local, national, and international artists.

A path in the forest and a Barefoot Path sign

/ I understand that the team behind Barefoot Path started noticing that the influx of visitors to the path was having some kind of impact in the nature that hosts the exhibition. Can you talk more about it? Can you tell what kind of signs are you observing, and what kind of reflections these signs wake up on all of you?

Due to increased popularity and media attention, and with an extra push from the local traveling boom created by Covid19, the exhibition saw a steep rise in visitors during 2020 and 2021. We were of course excited that the exhibition had reached this level of interest after all our hard work and commitment during the last years, but we also started realizing that with this comes new issues and responsibilities to consider.

The main exhibition site in the forest is quite small and with over 50 artworks in the last 10 years, there has been many new paths formed as new sites are used to show the works. With the high number of visitors, these small paths quickly start growing wider, and the areas surrounding artworks also get worn down surprisingly fast. Due to the delicate nature of the site these paths remain for years even after an artwork is removed, creating a criss-cross of paths and trampled spots in the small forest area.

This is of course something that has been happening slowly throughout the course of the exhibition, but the influx of visitors had it escalate visibly in the last year to the extent that we realized that we must take measures to protect the forest.

Also, the number of visitors also has an impact on the small village where the exhibition is located. The question about the infrastructure needed to host this amount of people and cars had been risen and with that, the question of how much the exhibition can grow before damaging itself in the process.

It’s a tricky situation, as we of course value our visitors and are overjoyed about the popularity of the exhibition. But at the same time, we need to start considering our responsibilities and hopefully find sustainable ways to operate on this level.

We hope that this intervention will also inspire others to think about the sustainability of their endeavors.

/ What kind of measurements have you taken to alleviate the human impact on the forest?

As of July 2022 we have, as a joint artistic intervention, closed down the main exhibition are and have put it into “resting mode”. While the area is closed off for visitors, we will examine the state of the forest, remove and/or restore existing artworks and consider if/how we can continue to offer high quality artistic experiences to our visitors in a sustainable way.

We will talk to landowners and local residents to hear their opinions on possible advantages or worries regarding the growing number of visitors to the village.

/ Jessica Koivistoinen’s work is clearly situated outside the path itself. Interacting with her work, we get to observe the forest that hosts Barefoot Path from the outside. The other new work for this 2022, The forest’s lament, is an audio reflection on the stress that trees suffer when other trees around them are cut down. Was the selection of the works and their placement intentional for the reflection and process the path is undergoing regarding the human impact in nature?

Yes. In 2022 our focus was that the new works selected would correlate with, and even emphasize, our intervention of putting the main exhibition area into “resting mode”. Therefore, all new works are placed to be experienced from the outside of that area and thematically fit into the thought process we are going through.

In addition to this, a selection of older works are still available to be seen in a smaller area of the exhibition.

/ How are the discussions of the working team regarding this critical moment are happening?

The Barefoot Path team made this unanimous decision in late 2021 while evaluating last years exhibition and planning the future one. Whilst the forest is resting, we have time to make a thorough analysis of the situation at hand.

/ Is the dismantling of the Barefoot Path something you are considering?

It is a possibility, although we are first and foremost focusing on ways to be able to continue in a sustainable way. Most probably this will mean a substantial change of the exhibition from what we are accustomed to.

That said, there are already processes for new works on their way.


Thank you, Sandra, for this interview, and thanks to you and to the whole team for offering such a special art installation on our little island.

If you are interested in visiting Barefoot Path this year, you can check out the list of artists that are exhibited in 2022 on our homepage. From there, you can read a description and get a glimpse of how each work looks on our 2022 exhibition page. And if you want to know how to arrive to barefoot Path, please visit about us.

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