Deep Time Séance 2: Contamination

18 October, 2015, Performative installation at Kiasma Theatre, Helsinki

Part of the festival theatre.now 2015

Deep Time Séance 2: Contamination is a layered performative installation, an eclectic gathering to meditate upon the circulation of pollutants and toxins, the increasing pollution of our everyday surroundings and our increasingly plastic bodies. The séance is organised as part of theatre.now festival that takes place on 14–18 October at Kiasma Theatre. The theme of this year’s festival is climate change.

In the early years of the 20th century, a séance signified a ritualistic session for communicating with the spiritual world. This séance, however, is a performative installation that collides the ‘rational’ and the magical in order to encounter the pervasive uncertainty and the ecological concerns of the contemporary reality of the early 21st century. Various artistic means are merged including animated videos, improvised live music, circulating sculptural objects, poetry, contemporary dance, storytelling and collective reiki healing.

Deep Time Séance 2: Contamination features a site-specific, performative installation realised as a collaboration between artist and musician Tuomas A. Laitinen, musicians Matti Ahopelto and Tapio Viitasaari and actress Anna Rawlings, poetry and circulating, sculptural energy objects by artist Jaakko Pallasvuo, choreography by Laura Jantunen and a story telling and collective reiki healing session conducted by artist Pia Lindman. The séance is curated by Jenni Nurmenniemi (HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme) as part of Frontiers in Retreat (2013–2018), a multidisciplinary project that investigates the junctions of emerging ecological thinking and contemporary art.

Working Group:

Concept, curation, direction: Jenni Nurmenniemi

Music: Matti Ahopelto & Tapio Viitasaari

Animation and video installations: Tuomas A. Laitinen

Storytelling and collective reiki session: Pia Lindman

Text and ‘energy objects’: Jaakko Pallasvuo

Choreography: Laura Jantunen,

Dancers: Laura Jantunen, Pauliina Sjöberg, Justus Pienmunne, Mari Salminen, Pietari Kärki

Performance: Anna Rawlings

Part of the photographic material used in the performative video installation courtesy of the Lost & Found Project: Family Photos Swept Away by 3.11 East Japan Tsunami, photos organised by Munemasa Takahashi. These images were originally used in Kristian Häggblom’s & Tuomas A. Laitinen’s ongoing collaborative project dealing with uranium which premiered in Mildura Palimpsest Biennale, Australia earlier in 2015.

Deep Time Séance 2: Contamination is co-produced by the project Frontiers in Retreat, coordinated by HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme and theatre.now festival, coordinated by Kiasma Theatre. The first Deep Time Séance took place at Residency Unlimited, Brooklyn, New York in April 2015, with the generous support of FCINY – Finnish Cultural Institute in New York, as part of the Mobius fellowship Program for art professionals.

The annual theatre.now event for contemporary theatre and performance is produced by Kiasma Theatre. The event is part of the four-year SharedSpace: Music Weather Politics 2013–2016 EU project that involves thematic events across Europe. Both projects SharedSpace: Music Weather Politics and Frontiers in Retreat are realised with the support of the Culture Programme of the European Union.