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· FHP project reference: <nowiki>https://fhp.incom.org/project/28636</nowiki> | · FHP project reference: <nowiki>https://fhp.incom.org/project/28636</nowiki> | ||
'''BIP 2: Landscape, Memory, and Postcards from Other Places''' | |||
'''BIP 2: Landscape, Tourism, Memory, and Postcards (or Souvenirs) from Other Places''' | |||
===Background=== | ===Background=== | ||
Estonia’s oil shale zone is a landscape cut through by centuries of imperialism, extractivism, and displacement. From the Russian Empire to the Soviet Union, northeastern Estonia (Ida-Virumaa) became a monofunctional industrial region. Towns were built around mines, populated by imported labor, and stripped of ecological and cultural continuity. Today, semi-coke hills, smoking spoil tips, and chemically altered wetlands are markers of slow violence. These are not empty ruins; they are active archives where environmental damage and historical amnesia collide. Concepts like Shifting Baseline Syndrome (SBS) reveal how generations forget previous ecological states, accepting degradation as normal. Memory fades, but the landscape still remembers. | Estonia’s oil shale zone is a landscape cut through by centuries of imperialism, extractivism, and displacement. From the Russian Empire to the Soviet Union, northeastern Estonia (Ida-Virumaa) became a monofunctional industrial region. Towns were built around mines, populated by imported labor, and stripped of ecological and cultural continuity. Today, semi-coke hills, smoking spoil tips, and chemically altered wetlands are markers of slow violence. These are not empty ruins; they are active archives where environmental damage and historical amnesia collide. Concepts like Shifting Baseline Syndrome (SBS) reveal how generations forget previous ecological states, accepting degradation as normal. Memory fades, but the landscape still remembers. As part of our research, we began by exploring this region digitally through Google Maps. In some locations, purple icons appear—tiny cameras with flashes—signaling so-called “points of interest” or “scenic spots.” Clicking on them reveals images uploaded by visitors: people posing in front of spoil heaps or wetlands, taking pictures of themselves or their dogs in front of the wounded landscape. You can find a selection of these images for download here: | ||
===Focus, Question, Anticipated Outcomes=== | ===Focus, Question, Anticipated Outcomes=== | ||
This project focuses on ecological and cultural scars left by oil shale extraction. Rather than conduct interviews (which may be impractical), we propose to observe and translate these wounds into a visual language. Our main question is: How do landscapes remember what we forget? And how can these memories be interpreted without anthropocentric assumptions? Each “scar”—whether a dried-out swamp, a collapsed shaft, or a rebranded hill—will be treated as a trace of violence, but also of persistence. The outcome will be a set of speculative “postcards” or souvenirs that visualize these traces: frottages from scarred surfaces, photographs of damaged landforms, embedded barcodes that play soundscapes or fragments of poetic text. By materializing these memories as mementos, we hope to challenge the transformation of trauma into tourist attraction, and explore how we might engage with landscapes as wounded subjects. | This project focuses on ecological and cultural scars left by oil shale extraction. Rather than conduct interviews (which may be impractical), we propose to observe and translate these wounds into a visual language. Our main question is: How do landscapes remember what we forget? And how can these memories be interpreted without anthropocentric assumptions? How do these anthropogenic landscapes shape local identity? How do people stage themselves in front of industrial wounds? How can we engage with landscapes as wounded subjects, not passive scenery? And what does it mean to remember through stone, soil, and silence? | ||
Each “scar”—whether a dried-out swamp, a collapsed shaft, or a rebranded hill—will be treated as a trace of violence, but also of persistence. The outcome will be a set of speculative “postcards” or souvenirs that visualize these traces: frottages from scarred surfaces, photographs of damaged landforms, embedded barcodes that play soundscapes or fragments of poetic text. By materializing these memories as mementos, we hope to challenge the transformation of trauma into tourist attraction, and explore how we might engage with landscapes as wounded subjects. | |||
===Technical Description (Methods & Tools)=== | ===Technical Description (Methods & Tools)=== | ||
We will use frottage (rubbing), drawing, and photography to capture textures and traces from specific damaged sites. Sound recordings will complement these, creating immersive “memory soundscapes.” will be embedded as QR codes on the postcards. Poems or short texts, generated from field impressions may also be an option. We will also use archival and speculative writing to connect specific sites to past cultural and ecological contexts. Each item will function as a poetic translation of a site’s scarred memory. | We will use frottage (rubbing), drawing, and photography to capture textures and traces from specific damaged sites. Sound recordings will complement these, creating immersive “memory soundscapes.” will be embedded as QR codes on the postcards. Poems or short texts, generated from field impressions may also be an option. We will also use archival and speculative writing to connect specific sites to past cultural and ecological contexts. Each item will function as a poetic translation of a site’s scarred memory. | ||
===References=== | |||
*Printsmann, Anneli. “The | === References === | ||
*Mildeberg, Saara. “A | *Printsmann, Anneli. “The Land of Oil Shale.” (2012) | ||
*Sooväli-Sepping & | *Mildeberg, Saara. “A Post-Industrial Adventure Land?” (2024) | ||
*Sooväli-Sepping & Palang. “Imaginary Landscapes” (2005) | |||
*Kaljundi & Sooväli-Sepping, eds. Maastik ja mälu [Landscape and Memory] | |||
*<nowiki>https://www.reachtheworld.org/annas-journey-estonia/world-connections/bogs-and-mires-estonia?page=2</nowiki> | *<nowiki>https://www.reachtheworld.org/annas-journey-estonia/world-connections/bogs-and-mires-estonia?page=2</nowiki> | ||
*<nowiki>https://chertluedde.com/exhibition/mail-art-exchangeberlin-los-angeles/</nowiki> | |||
*<nowiki>https://leamariawittich.de/the-sorrows-of-nature</nowiki> | |||
*<nowiki>https://leamariawittich.de/suite-der-steinernen-souvenirs</nowiki> | |||
*<nowiki>https://www.esbaluard.org/en/exposicion/lluisvecinarufiandis/</nowiki> | |||
'''BIP 3 Let the Swamp Speak: Memory, Death, and Carbon in the Hollow Earth''' | '''BIP 3 Let the Swamp Speak: Memory, Death, and Carbon in the Hollow Earth''' | ||
===Background=== | ===Background=== | ||
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Field photography and sketching to document swamp boundaries, collapsed zones, and residues of mining infrastructure. Observing signs of industrial sedimentation and biological succession—pipes overtaken by moss, ash hills seeping into wetlands, or invasive reeds overtaking native flora. Sampling water, soil, and plants for basic visual/textural analysis (using color, pH strips, layering jars). Recording ambient sounds—bubbling, insects, wind through reeds—as speculative swamp soundscapes. Mapping “zones of memory” where stories, material residues, and changing ecologies intersect. Collecting or reimagining local folklore through drawing, micro-poetry, or storytelling. | Field photography and sketching to document swamp boundaries, collapsed zones, and residues of mining infrastructure. Observing signs of industrial sedimentation and biological succession—pipes overtaken by moss, ash hills seeping into wetlands, or invasive reeds overtaking native flora. Sampling water, soil, and plants for basic visual/textural analysis (using color, pH strips, layering jars). Recording ambient sounds—bubbling, insects, wind through reeds—as speculative swamp soundscapes. Mapping “zones of memory” where stories, material residues, and changing ecologies intersect. Collecting or reimagining local folklore through drawing, micro-poetry, or storytelling. | ||
===References=== | ===References=== | ||
*Anna Tsing | *Anna Tsing et al., “Contaminated Diversity” and Feral Atlas (2020) | ||
*Linda | *Linda Kaljundi & Helen Sooväli-Sepping, eds., Maastik ja mälu [Landscape and Memory] (2014) | ||
*Saara | *Saara Mildeberg, "A Post-Industrial Adventure Land?" (2024) | ||
*Anneli | *Anneli Printsmann, "The Land of Oil Shale" (2012) | ||
*Estonian | *Estonian folklore archives (Eksitaja and swamp-based pseudomyths) | ||
'''BIP 4: Poetic homage to the Stone''' | |||
===Background=== | |||
In the Anthropocene—a geological epoch defined by the lasting impact of human activity—stones become not just passive remnants, but active witnesses. Extractive industries, such as oil shale mining in northeastern Estonia, have left behind scarred terrains: chemically altered wetlands, semi-coke hills, and unstable spoil tips. These landscapes are inscribed with the histories of imperialism, industrialization, and ecological trauma. Yet within these ruined geologies lies the potential for new forms of storytelling and care. Inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin, this project turns to stones—not as resources to be extracted, but as fellow beings with whom we might enter into poetic relation. | |||
=== '''Main Object / Focus of Fieldwork''' === | |||
The focus of this project is to create a homage to the stone—a book-object composed of lithographic prints that visualize and interpret a selected poem about stones, maybe one by Ursula K. Le Guin, maybe own. The fieldwork centers on the Estonian oil shale region, where layers of geological violence persist as visible, tangible scars. Our core research question is: How can stones serve as mediators of memory and imagination in damaged post-industrial ecologies? And how might poetic language offer a form of listening to the nonhuman, particularly to the stone as both witness and kin? | |||
Ursula K. Le Guin states in her Essay „Deep in Admiration“ that „by demonstrating and performing aesthetic order or beauty, poetry can move minds to the sense of fellowship that prevents careless usage and exploitation of our fellow beings, waste and cruelty.“ | |||
By combining poetry with material from the oil shale region—stone dust or ash, incorporated into handmade paper—we explore how trauma, matter, and metaphor intersect. Ideally, a piece of limestone or oil shale from Estonia would serve as the lithographic matrix. | |||
The anticipated outcome is an artist’s book that acts as a meditation on time, human error, and the consistant presence of the geologic in our cultural present. It resists objectification and instead embraces what Mary Jacobus calls “the stilled voice of the inanimate object”. | |||
=== '''Technical Description''' === | |||
Lithography will be used as the central printing technique, ideally on limestone or oil shale, if transport and handling are possible and safe. The paper will be handmade, incorporating ashes or stone particles sourced (ethically and safely) from the oil shale region, depending on toxicity assessments. A poem by Ursula K. Le Guin, or a newly written poem in dialogue with her work, will serve as the textual backbone of the book. Visual compositions will respond to both the text and the tactile qualities of the materials, allowing the stone’s own visual language to guide the process. The final format will be a book object, potentially accompanied by digital documentation of the material research and site visits. | |||
=== '''References''' === | |||
* Ursula K. Le Guin – Deep in Admiration | |||
* Mary Jacobus – ''Romantic Things'' (2012) | |||
* Jeffrey Jerome Cohen – ''Stone: An Ecology of the Inhuman'' (2015) | |||
* <nowiki>https://leamariawittich.de/the-sorrows-of-nature</nowiki> | |||