Artist Riitta Ikonen Confronts Climate Crisis with ‘Snowflake’

Maggie: Snowflake is a very imaginative piece, and it speaks to people in a way that numbers and statistics about the climate do not. Can you tell us about the inspiration behind this project, and your decision to use your art to talk about climate change?

Riitta: The strange lack of snow at Christmas time was very unfortunate once, but most upsetting the second time round. Finnish people call this ‘black Christmas’ (when there is no snow). In southern Finland this isn’t so very unusual, but where my grandmother lives and where I spend my time when i go home it’s a scandal. I don’t remember a year when we wouldn’t have had proper blanket of snow at Christmas time. I think the whole notion of ‘climate change’ really hit home when I realised that ‘this has never happened before in my lifetime- some line somewhere must have been crossed’. I felt I could empathize with empty fields missing the snow and the queer snow alone without any of its friends.

Art for me is an obvious outlet for the thoughts, doubts and concerns that occupy my mind. I find it easier to work things out through doing and performing than writing about my feelings on these issues…in this way things are very immediate to me. I found that my work affects people and I’ve been glad about the feedback especially on the snowflake project. I hope some of the climate change related work could be used in a more informative way, outside the ‘art’ scene, reaching an audience across the boundaries.

Maggie: I read last year that the ice near Helsinki was not freezing as well as before. Is the ice also freezing less this year? And have you seen other effects of climate change where you live?

Riitta: Finland is definitely seeing the effects of the climate change. Normally the coldest time of the year is in the end of January to the beginning of February, but in the past few years the coldest times have been at the end of winter. There is confusion among the plants especially in the southern Finland as the temperatures are above average, many plants that are supposed to start budding in April/May are starting in early February, well before their time and find themselves in trouble when the temperatures plummet again.

The Baltic sea is warmer. There is a photo with snowflake in front of two idle ice breakers that are waiting redundant in the Helsinki harbour, normally they start working in the beginning of January as an average winter sees about 30cm ice outside Helsinki, (last year had 20cm). At Bay of Bothnia there has been a fraction of the normal workload for the breakers ‘Otso’ and ‘Kontio’. By March the ice should be at it’s thickest. This year the Gulf of Finland hasn’t seen serious ice all winter.

Maggie: ‘Snowflake’ is part of a project organized by The Royal College of Art in London. Can you tell us about that?

Riitta: Snowflake is part of an ongoing series of work I’m doing as part of a project titled ‘Endgame’ set by the Communication department at the RCA in London. The aim is to have the form and content of the projects engage with issues of energy consumption and climate change in relation to an aspect of everyday life. The final works will be showcased in the London shows of RCA and the University of the Arts in June 2008. More information on Endgame can be found here: communications-rca.com/?p=28

Maggie: Do you feel confident that people are starting to take steps to reduce their impact on the climate?

Riitta: Yes. Maybe in certain places people are taking very little steps and in other places people are taking bigger ones, but all in all, people do become more interested in the effects of climate change when it affects their daily lives. With our little population of a bit over 5 million people in Finland I think the Finns are very much in touch with where they are from and what life is made of. Nature is important to us. The state of the Baltic sea is a real time bomb and I hope all the countries involved in its well being will do all in their power to stop the grim future that it will be facing if action isn’t taken at once.

Having lived in London now for nearly two years I find it amazing how far the city life is from what I consider to be ‘real.’ I think that in England there is definitely a pressure and even an obligation to respond to the rising problems of climate change. Whether it is the increasingly expensive and energy efficiency rated gas bills or the hefty congestion charge for users of four by fours and the £25 per day charge for vehicles with high CO2 emissions that want to enter London. With an increasing amount of designers and artists’ projects like Endgame, working on social interaction, designers and artists can affect the way of things as well. As you said, I too believe that art can reach people much deeper than any diagram or document.

Maggie: Do you plan to use your art to address other environmental issues in the future?

Riitta: Definitely. I feel extremely motivated to work on a project on this theme. I will continue the work in Finland in the summer on overgrown lakes and the effects of warming temperatures. I’m hoping to get funding to continue the project in the Baltic Sea, where the warmer weather means a longer growing period, which accelerates the growth of seaweeds and weakens the level of salt in the water.

I’m always on the look out for more concerns, I’d be very happy to hear other peoples’ observations from their surroundings and livelihoods. My main interest lies in nature, as it has always been a big part of my life in Finland. 187,888 lakes isn’t one too many to have in one country and I’d hate to loose any of them.

Maggie: Thank you for sharing your work with us, Riitta!

You can see more of Riitta’s work at www.riittaikonen.com

by Maggie MacDonald