MIA MAKELA ART+SCI+NATURE

Mia Makela is a Finnish media artist and cultural historian, whose work explores intersections between art and other disciplines: technology, science, ecology. She is a researcher-artist whose production is based on a deep need to understand and take into account the non-human world.



 

Makela uses expert knowledge and empirical research as part of her media artworks. In her artistic process, she steps into the worlds she describes and turns into an algae hunter, a zookeeper, a bird watcher, a beekeeper.  Her works manifest a long-term observation and examination of her subjects. She challenges us to see the limitations of human senses and to look at the world in a larger continuum.



 

Makela exhibits chosen themes in the forms of video, installations, audio guides, expeditions, participatory acts and related publications. Makela, internationally acknowledged pioneer in the field of live cinema, has shown her work and lectured all over the globe.


Her latest activities include Looking for Mr. Blue, a virtual bird watching saga tracing the cultural history of a goose. History of an Impossible Destiny, a 4-channel video installation, for which she spent 3 years documenting beekeeping around Europe and doing research on the destiny of the honey bee.  Zootopia audio guide for zoos, a posthumanist and feminist re-imagining of other species. Artistic expeditions in Patagonia and Chiloe Island in Chile in search for creating practical framework for her human-animal studies. Green Matters – video handbook for algae gatherers - an exploration in the world of green algae and traditional weaving in order to save the Baltic Sea.



 

Currently she is working on minerals and beevision.