Nykytaika - In search of re-enchantment and lost local ecological knowledge

Abstract

In this thesis I examine thoughts, potential and possible answers to two main questions. Can local ecological knowledge and knowledge needed for plant-based (self)care be gathered and created without belonging to a community of people and traditions or having teachers from previous generations? Is the re-enchantment of one’s personal world, through living-in-place, creating one’s own powerful words and listening, possible if one’s worldview has been indelibly affected by scientific method and logic? This examination is executed both through artistic practice and this academic text.

In chapter two I discuss the history of Finnish folk magic and witchcraft along with the many theoretical movements and artworks that have all shaped my thinking and artistic practice either directly or unconsciously. I place myself in the continuum of movements like bioregionalism, ecofeminism and interconnectedness (which is not an official movement but a word that to my opinion best describes contemporary ecologically oriented feminist theory). Together with the theoretical movements I go through inspirational and relevant art works by both Finnish and international artists.

The result of my artistic practice for this thesis is a book of magic called Nykytaika, which I go through in more detail in chapter three. Nykytaika entails three chapters: spells, potions and baths. In between these chapters I have written a prose format diary. All of this is illustrated with photography taken both in situ and in a studio setting, assisted by my partner Pieter-Jan Van Damme. I gathered content for the book during my fieldwork in the spring of 2019 and executed the final layout with a graphic designer Else Lagerspetz. The book was printed in Estonia with the help of a grant from Aalto University. During this process my practice grew to be a mixture of gathering existing knowledge on plants and spells and, with the help of improvisation and experimentation, combining these different bits of knowledge with my aesthetics, in order to create a new tradition for myself.

In chapter four I discuss the future of my practice and the value of the research I have done for this thesis. From retrospective I now see that Nykytaika will serve as a starting point for a permanent practice of learning to listen to the land and through staying-put becoming a native to somewhere with a more magical framework, an interpreted bioregionalist practice. Local ecological knowledge is out there to be gathered from the plants, that carry in them information that cannot be destroyed, and the words that are already in all of us. Re-enchantment is inevitable through learning, listening and understanding better the complexity and diversity of the world around and in us.