Folklorist on the road

In the video installation The Human Story (Ihmisen tarina, 2015) experts from different fields tell their own versions of the story of the human race. How is the story seen from the perspective of evolutionary biology, theology or astronomy? How were humans born? Is there a purpose to human existence? What will happen to humans in the future? Laininen interviewed each expert around a fire in an Iron Age hut on a dark winter evening. She edited the interviews into a polyphonic story where different worldviews live side by side. The video was installed as a life-size campfire circle in a dark gallery space.

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The Human Story is Laininen’s Master’s degree work for the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki. At the moment Laininen is starting the fine arts doctoral studies to research sustainable life forms in the post fossil future. She is developing creative writing as a tool to react to environmental crisis: How can communal creative writing support the process of learning skills of sustainable life?

Laininen is also teaching and practicing creative writing, including ecological science fiction. Her poems has been published in anthologies and she has won several poetry prizes in Finland.