dance artist & anthropologist
Bodying with
places, faces
and matters
This participatory ecosomatic tour was presented in the frame of an international group exhibition of contemporary art "They Began to Talk" on display at Kumu Art Museum (Estonia) during 07.02.-03.08.2025.
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The artistic works of the exhibition explored the intertwinement of the body and the environment in an era marked by rapid environmental change and inequality. Sudden changes in the physical environment, often caused by human activity, can evoke mental suffering in land-based communities. Stored in the body, this trauma is passed on to future generations, who perceive it as an interruption in their relationship with their surroundings.
The exhibition brought together the practices of artists working in this region with those from Indigenous communities in the Nordic countries, exploring the possibility of recovering and cultivating a sense of connection between body and land.
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Artists: Pia Arke, EglÄ— BudvytytÄ—, Merike Estna, Sofia Filippou & Eline Selgis, John Grzinich, Joanna Kalm, Johann Köler, Ruth Maclennan, Outi Pieski & Biret Haarla Pieski & Gáddjá Haarla Pieski, Mia Tamme, Sasha Tishkov and Vive Tolli
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Team
Curators: Ann Mirjam Vaikla and Hanna Laura Kaljo
Exhibition design: Kaarel Eelma
Graphic design: Tuuli Aule
Technical manager: Siim Hiis
Technical support: Mati Schönberg
Coordinator: Anastassia Langinen
An ecosomatic approach involves relating to the environment through bodily experience in order to become aware of how the body’s processes are intertwined and connected with those of the environment: plants and animals, water and air, microorganisms and land. As human organisms, we have evolved through continuous engagements within our environments, manifested today in the way our sensing, moving and thinking remain grounded in relationships to our surroundings: we feel, think and move with and in particular environments.
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During the ecosomatic tours, we will explore our perceptions of the boundary between ourselves and our environment through bodily exercises and dialogue. By allowing our objective and distant gaze to soften and relax, we will bring our senses and bodies into intimate contact with the surroundings. We will experiment with increasing our receptivity and porousness and experience the flow of matter within ourselves, in built objects and architecture, and in living nature. We will look back in time and our bodies: which of the past environments and experiences are still acutely resonating within?
Let your senses invite you into the environment and take you there.
The senses are like bridges through which we shape our relationship with the world. We have the ability to discriminate sensibly – not see and hear and touch – but it is also possible to deepen our relationships through the attention and action.
How do you reach out to the environment with your senses to learn something about it?
Like an animal that sets out to explore a new environment headfirst.
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Note, how is the act of sensing already choreographing you?
How can your gaze move you through space?
What is the relationship between your gaze and distance – how close or far do you habitually look? Allow yourself to look very close, too close, and very far.
Allow your gaze to take your body to an unusual position, to re-configure your boney architecture.
What do you perceive of the nature of the environment by smelling? Can you perceive the width of the space by sniffing?
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Do you feel the pull of gravity in your mouth? Can you measure weight with your tongue?
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Can you perceive humidity with the surface of your eyes?
One focus of this ecosomatic tour is to perceive the body as a collection of porous surfaces through which we are in penetrating contact with our surroundings.
One large porous surface is undoubtedly the skin.
The skin is like a large leaf that breathes and perceives across its entire surface.
When we breathe in, air moves through the nostrils and trachea into the alveoli of the lungs. As the lungs fill, the internal space and surface area increase – oxygen and carbon dioxide move through the surface of the alveoli. It’s a tender surface exchange.
In addition, we have other various internal surfaces:
Organ surfaces,
muscle surfaces,
fascinate surfaces,
bone surfaces,
surface of the abdominal cavity,
surface of the brain,
the surfaces of the trillion cells of your body,
which are in touch with each other, communicating, participating in a constant metabolism.
Receptiveness and giving can become more possible.
Essentially, everything comes down to penetrating touch.
The head senses are also specialized senses of touch.
Odor particles and air touch the epithelial tissue in the nostrils.
Sound vibrations touch the eardrum and the touch of the vibration carries further.
Light touches the retina, even through closed eyelids.
Sensory information moves from the periphery in the form of electrical impulses to the center, tto he central nervous system – the outside moves in.
What if you didn’t have so much to reach out towards the world,
but instead open your porous surfaces and let the world flow into you?
