This blog post is a memory brief of the Suomenlinna event we had in March – scroll down to the end to read more about upcoming Island Apocalypse Tours!
Pixelache Festival has happened in many interesting and unique locations, but for some reason for many of us the island locations – Suomenlinna, Vartiosaari, Naissaar (Estonia) – have been the most memorable.
During 2024, long-term Pixelache members Antti Ahonen & Andrew Gryf Paterson in collaboration with Jenna Jauhiainen take us back to these islands by organising guided tours and happenings for a small group of participants. These events are part of the ongoing memory work and archiving processes related to Pixelache's 20+ years of history, and are open to both carriers of memories of past festivals and the willing creators of new memories.
The Island Apocalypse Tours of 2024 engage with the concept of Solastalgia, a term coined by Glenn Albrecht which refers to the distress and melancholy of losing one's own environment and habitat, especially in the context of climate crisis and biodiversity collapse. In addition to delving into memories of past Pixelache Festivals, these Island Tours will be an opportunity to discuss not only the changing ecological ecosystems of our environments, but also the social and technical environments that have related to our cultural work in self-organized, emerging and grassroots organisations. The last Island Tour to Tarvo will compile documentations and finalise the series.
Island Apocalypse Tours: #1 Suomenlinna report by Jenna Jauhiainen, photos by Antti Ahonen
On Saturday 23rd of March, the first island we returned to was Suomenlinna. Starting right after a day of HIAP Open Studios (see link below for details), we had dinner together, held a memory work session, saw a spontaneous art exhibit, had a sleepover, ate breakfast together – and finally, did a walk around the island the next day during which we visited some important locations from Pixelache’s past.
The following is a photo report of the Suomenlinna tour, with some memories attached to it. Brace yourself also for a recording of the entire walk we had on Sunday the 24th around the island, in the freezing cold weather.
Suomenlinna became an important location of Pixelache Festival from 2004 when international guests started using the hostel when visiting the festival, in 2005 using Galleria Augusta as a venue, and particularly 2011 when the Festival was solely the venue for the whole festival 'Hacking Suomenlinna'.
Andrew Gryf Paterson introducing the Island Apocalypse Tours to the participants in HIAP, Suomenlinna.
Memory work session
Jenna Jauhiainen facilitated some tuning into memories and remembering.
Participants tuning into memory work.
Andrew reading Glenn Albrecht's book Earth Emotions: New Words for a New World (2019).
After tuning into doing some memory work through a type of a guided meditation facilitated by Jenna and getting familiar with the term solastalgia as read from Glenn Albrecht’s book Earth Emotions: New Words for a New World (2019), we discussed the topics that came up for a couple of hours.
One thing that we discussed for quite a length of time was how different the optimism of the first years of this Millennium were. Participants said they miss that sense of optimism, of looking into the future and thinking that it would bear good things, progress, social justice, and so on. As the climate catastrophe becomes apparent in all its effects both local and global, particularly for the fragile island ecosystems, we cannot be this optimistic anymore.
Somebody said, I have a fear of missing out on the past. The idea behind this was that, there is a sense of FOMO about things that one does not even know they missed out on in the past. Perhaps some great moments were had during the Pixelache festival in Suomenlinna, too, that we don’t even know we missed out on and would love to have participated. Maybe some formative experiences of our youths lingered past us without us even knowing they took place.
Continuing in this vein, somebody posed the question of Was Suomenlinna ever real? This grew into a discussion about the realness of memories. Are any memories real? In what sense? Going back to the FOMO, we started to wonder can you miss out on all times – missing out the past, missing out the present, missing out the future? In the dark late March night on a quiet little island in the Baltic Sea, we wondered do we always miss out, even when we are there?
The atmosphere was contemplative, even somewhat heavy-hearted. We had a toast after Antti processed his thoughts and feelings about the looming end of more than 20 years of life with Pixelache – Antti has decided to move on. What’s left is archiving. We end the discussion by pondering for a while about how we could leave things be without at least attempting to archive them.
A participant hosted a spontaneous art exhibition.
WALK
The morning after, a walk around the island was had by the participants who stayed over for the night. We made a walk which started on the rocky coast line near to HIAP building where Viapori-era carvings were made, then to Taidekoulu MAA building, a random location according to a generator app (called RANDONAUTICA), then Paarlastihuone, Pajasaali, Officers Club, Suomenlinna Hostel, and finally ending at the former Café Chapman. Somewhere along the way we stopped by a submarine to dream about KOELSE having performed there.
Listen to the entire walk as recorded by Andrew from here: https://soundcloud.com/pixelache/island-apocalypse-tours-2024-suomenlinna-guided-walk
The morning was foggy.
The sea had ice.
Behind Taidekoulu Maa, we found an old execution spot.
RANDONAUTICA sometimes took us to weird places.
If only KOELSE had performed in the submarine.
The Officer Club had changed its interior, but the archival images remain.
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Acknowledgements: This particular 'tour' event was hosted by HIAP, but is organised by Jenna Jauhiainen, in cooperation with Antti Ahonen & Andrew Gryf Paterson, as part of Pixelache Helsinki's 2024 programme, supported by TAIKE & Helsinki City.
Join us for the next tour!
The next tour of the Island Apocalypse Tours is Naissaar (Estonia) + Vartiosaari. We will spend a minimum of two nights in Estonia, do at least a day trip to Naissaar, plus a chill-out in Vartiosaari and some memory work on Camps to do there afterwards. The tour takes place from 22nd of August to 26th of August. You can choose to join both Naissaar and Vartiosaari, or just one of the two. We will negotiate with the participants about what we should do during the tours, what would feel relevant right now – especially in regards to the Estonia part of the trip.
Thus, please be in contact with us and secure your place as soon as possible.
We plan to be able to cover some of the expenses for the trips for the participants, and thus we are seeking up to 8 participants!
How to book your place and find out more info? Contact andrew@pixelache.ac and/or jenna@pixelache.ac.
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Island Apocalypse Tours 2024
#1 Suomenlinna (23.–24.3.)
#2 Naissaar (2-day trip via Tallinn, 22.–25.8.)
#3 Vartiosaari (25-26.8.)
#4 Tarvo (Saturday 7.-8.9.)