Focused on soil and clay as artistic medium, South African artist Dineo Seshee Bopape’s solo exhibition at Kiasma is sure to cover a lot of ground. Following site visits around Finland to bogs, swamps, forests and landfills (to learn how dirt and rubble excavated from construction sites are managed), Bopape had a residency with Frantsila, a herb farm that grows 20 wild plants and herbs that they use to create healing teas, detox peat, medicinal salves, ‘functional’ fragrances and much more. Located two hours north of Helsinki, this regenerative organic farm inhabits land farmed by the same family for ten generations. While Frantsila stresses soil’s role in nurturing the healing powers of plants, Bopape esteems soil as a repository for decayed plants, dead animals, minerals and glacial till, which comprises clay, silt and sand, linking fertile soil to cycles of regeneration. Bopape has thus conceived an exhibition aimed at acquainting Kiasma visitors with soil’s vitality and historical legacy, as well as Finnish paganism, which persisted in some areas until the twentieth century and resembles the Sami religion. Using a 750 square-metre gallery as her studio, she will construct several round huts covered in clay, enabling people to lie down inside and dream. Unbeknownst to visitors, they will sense her special scent meant to ease social tensions and prompt connectivity with strangers. The café will offer those keen to awaken their spirituality a dream-stimulating tea.
