Through performance, moving image and vocal composition, artist and composer Hanna Tuulikki investigates ways in which the body can communicate beyond and before words. With a site-specific approach, she tells stories through imitation, vocalisation, and gesture, exploring the bodily relationships and folkloric traditions that are encoded within specific environments. Tuulikki is particularly interested in practices of vocal and gestural mimesis of the more-than-human, offering different methods of empathy between each other and various other species, resulting in a holistic, ecological awareness.
Filmed at the mouth of the River Ythan, Aberdeenshire, Seals’kin (2022) is a short film showcasing a sonic and choreographed meditation on longing and loss. Commissioned by the Biennial of Sydney 2022, Seals’kin draws on myths of human-seal hybridity and folkloric musical practices to reimagine a contemporary mourning rite. Tuulikki explores with her body what it might mean to “become-with-seal”, inspired by stories of selkies, mythological creatures in Scottish folklore that shapeshift between seal and human forms by shedding or wearing their seal skin. In these tales, selkies venture onto land, assuming human guise while safeguarding their seal skins in coastal hideaways. However, losing their skins renders them trapped in human form, unable to transform and return to sea. Often depicted gazing wistfully at the ocean, these creatures sing poignant melodies, seeking a connection with their oceanic kin.
In the artwork, Tuulikki offers herself to the seals through a ceremony of seal-like gestures which seem to communicate to the animals, I mean no harm, I am here to join you. Do you see me? Do you understand? Tuulikki draws parallels between these poignant selkie narratives and allegories of bereavement, intrigued by how these timeless tales historically offered solace in times of grief in navigating contemporary crises such as the pandemic and climate change.
Aberdeen Art Gallery was keen to acquire Tuulikki’s work as it exudes a Northeast sensibility, a semi-elusive trait that the gallery is hoping to develop within its wider collection. Located 13 miles up the road from the gallery on Newburgh Beach, the shooting location is affectionately known as ‘The Seal Beach’ by locals. It also draws parallels to existing works in its collection, such as The Two Sisters (2009) by Susan Philipsz and Another Place (2000) by artist duo Dalziel and Scullion, that also look at identity and the landscape as a means of examining relationships.
