Harriina Räinä
The artworks are exhibited at Project Room
1989 / Kemi
2018
Sculpture: elk bone and elk remains, moving image and sound
Hunted explores elk hunting as a process and the elk as a body that is the object of hunting. The work is based on a study of my own body, which grew to its full size thanks to elk meat consumption. The body of the hunted animal, and the nutrients it contains, serve as building blocks for the consumer’s body. I am interested in the transformation that takes place when the matter in the animal becomes assimilated into another body.
In the autumn of 2017, I went elk hunting with the members of a small hunting club in Northern Ostrobothnia. I waited in silence, listening to the forest. I checked the Tracker to see where the hunting dogs and other hunters were. The carcasses of a calf and a mother elk were hanging by the hunting lodge, waiting to be processed. Elk hunting has traditionally required a comprehensive knowledge and under- standing of both the animal and the environment, as well as a deep commitment both to the task at hand and to the community.
I am interested in how people become attached to their environment and how they survive, as well as power relations, embodiment and the act of perception. In my practice, I have examined things like the relationship between the modern human and “nature”; the dichotomies of structures and agencies; and the different ways in which the human species makes use of land.