At Sea

Three weeks ago, our Knowledge at Sea – Transdisciplinary Community Practices for Sustainability group spent our first whole day travelling over the North Sea.

Particularly when we saw the huge oil platforms out there as artificial islands, I came to think about Marion Graus’ work on Norwegian Petroleum culture, but also their work together with Lovisa Mienna Sjöberg on the Leviathan and other creatures in the deep! You can find their Fish, Fetishization, and Faith in the Arctic Ocean here!

Originally, Eduardo Abrantes and I had planned that one of the tools we would use to set up the community work in a transdisciplinary manner was to read Olaus Magnus’ travel log with nature phenomena and descriptions of fish and fishing practices, as a de-stabilising entry into an unknown world. In the end, however, the only part we stayed with was the monsters on the map! Asking how myths and so-called ”imaginary creatures” can be part of minor histories that help us read and interpret the deeper and sometimes unseen layers of a land/seascape?

Another practice we brought with us, where we aimed at bringing the participants from Åbo Akademi University, Trinity College Dublin, Eötvös Loránd University, Skärgårdshavets Biosfärområde, Kimitoöns kommun | Kemiönsaaren kunta | Municipality of Kimitoön and the artists Frank Berger, Robertho Paredes Coral and Saija Lehtonen to a more equal starting point, at the level of introductions, was to think about what skills they bring with them and which kinds of sensory experiences they have gathered, that can enable them to ”read” and be with the Sea and the boat as participants on this journey?

We are grateful to Svenska kulturfonden/The Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland, Stiftelsen för Åbo Akademi, and Nordisk Kulturfond for making this course possible.