People of the
Lost Utopian Meadow
The Lost Utopian Meadow project extends the metaphorical implications of what a meadow means to Finland within the contexts of ecological conservation, cultural significance, and as a site of contemporary co-existence.
Conceived by Ali Akbar Mehta and Vidha Saumya after an invitation to participate in Onoma's 2020 Summer Exhibition ‘Meadow’, curated by Taru Elfving.
The first work of this project is Ballad of the Lost Utopian Meadow, realised as a collaborative work between:
Ali Akbar Mehta
SongwriterAli Akbar Mehta is a Transmedia artist, curator, and researcher, who creates immersive cyber archives that map narratives of history, memory, and identity constructs through a multifocal lens of violence, conflict, and trauma. Such archival mappings – as drawings, paintings, new media works, net-based projects, poems, essays, and theoretical texts, as well as performances both of bodies and networks – are rooted in posthumanist critical theories of making visible hegemonic power relations and silenced historical materialism. His ongoing doctoral research, tentatively titled ‘Practicing Online Performativity: Constructing Politically Conscious Archives for the Future’, is interested in exploring the performative relations between online archives and its users through the mediated interventions of Second Order Cybernetics, to create knowledge systems that outline a vibrant new political public sphere.
Vidha Saumya
Editor and ProducerVidha Saumya is a Helsinki based Artist-Poet. whose body of works – Monumental Drawings, Intimate Mark-makings, Murals, Books, Poems, Sculptures, Embroidered Textiles, Food Art, Videos, and Digital Artifacts – are wry and warm in their politics and kaleidoscopic in their aesthetics. The concept of Heimat / (Home)land is at the core of her praxis.
varialambo
Vocals and Pianovarialambo is an artist duo based in Helsinki.
Varia Sjöström, *1980 actress for nearly twenty years. Got tired of repeating male dominated story telling. Decided to create her own stories and became the first descendant of the Feminist Guerrilla Group Dust and Seeds.
Hatz Lambo, *1980 writer and poet. In 2019 he moved to Finland and became an artist. He builds Installations from the 4th Millennium.
“We like the idea of social fantasy. We like the state of over exhaustion and lasting plays. The repetition of given narratives is one of the last Dinosaurs on earth. It’s time to bury it with dignity but fast.”
Palash Mukhopadhyay
Website and UX DesignPalash Mukhopadhyay is a UX Designer & Developer, self professed tinkerer and part-time wordist. He focuses on simplicity and specialises in rapid prototyping and digital toolsets, with over 15 years of experience in designing and developing for the web.
Kim Modig
Sound ArrangementKim (Kaino) Modig works as an artist and sound designer. They make up one half of the artist duo Biitsi. Modig lives in Helsinki.
Albert Ihanus
Audio EngineerAlber Ihanus is a producer with Artlab Studios, Helsinki.
Tuike Alitalo & Simo Alitalo
Finland Food ExpertsTuike Alitalo and Simo Alitalo are sound artists based in Turku, Finland. Their practice involves sound installations based on field recordings, environmental art, writing, participatory performances as well as communal sound performances and listening walks. Exploring the ways places are heard, their work emerges from the central questions of ‘acoustemology’, i.e. acoustic epistemology, questioning, “What do we experience through sound, listening and other auditive practices? How is our knowledge shaped by the things we hear in our surroundings?”
Produced for ‘Meadow’, Fiskars Summer Exhibition, curated by Taru Elfving, Fiskars Village, 2020.
Produced with support from Taru Elfving and CAA Contemporary Art Archipelago, Helsinki.
Recorded at Artlab studios, Helsinki.