The Winged Words Nest dives into the historical context of birds in nature writing, in the current situation of environmental change.
Most humans are unaware of the birds dwindling. Amid our lost connection to and reverence for nature we have developed a blindness and deafness to their perishing. As we become more distant to the presence of the birds we also become unfamiliar to their language and therefore stop listening to their calls and songs. The birds thus need translators who can communicate their needs as well as their joys. In the Winged Words Nest we have invited writers and researchers who, in different ways, have contributed to interpreting and communicating a deeper understanding of the presence and calls of birds.
Art is powerful and have the ability to bypass the intellect and reach peoples hearts to create change and awaken awareness. Sometimes these works can reverberate so strongly that people’s attitudes and habits change, as well as legislations. The American biologist and author Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring, published in 1962, was one of those epic writings that moved mountains and eventually brought about a ban on DDT. The beautifully poetic book The Peregrine by the mysterious english writer J.A Baker, published in 1967, did not perhaps have the same forceful consequences but spread a gentle awareness of the amazing birds in our neighbourhood and how the quick fixes of modern agriculture was looming as lethal weapons already back then.
On a much more positive note the Finnish veterinarian and writer Yrjö Kokko is credited with having saved the whooper swan population in Finland from extinction. Despite being protected by legislation in the 1930’s the whooperswans were still hunted and their eggs stolen, and there were as little as around 12 pairs left. In 1950 Kokko published his famous book Laulujoutsen – Ultima Thulen lintu / The singing swan that became incredibly popular and touched the hearts of many Finns. Hunting eventually stopped and the whooperswan population rapidly increased and there are now approximately 10 000 pairs nesting in Finland. The book saved a species from extinction and transformed the whooperswan into an icon that has become Finland’s national symbol, and even made it into the Finnish passports as a watermark! Read or listen more about this inspiring story in PhD Katri Aholainens contribution to Winged Words.
We are also honoured to share a text by Finnish literary scholar and Karoliina Lumma, who currently is a docent at Turku University. She has worked extensively with with birds in literature and Lummaa’s publications include a number of research articles and co-edited anthologies on ecocriticism and posthumanism. She is the author of two monographs focusing on Finnish bird poetry and bird cultures including the book Kui trittitii! Finnish Avian Poetics, published in 2017. Here we present the essay Birds in Finnish literature which has been translated from Finnish for The Conference of the Birds.
We also offer an introduction to and a reflection of the beautiful and sensitive bird-poetry of the late Swedish poet Nina Södergren through the words of Jessica Sunnebo in her essay Birdpoetic Worlds.
Read the selected texts for the Winged Words Nest in the posts below.
How words can change the life of birds.
Birds in Finnish literature
Sensing Birdpoetic Worlds
A bird worthy of a song
Curators of and contributors to the Winged Words Workshop
Ulrika Jansson (SE)
Artist/CURATOR
Ulrika Jansson’s artistic practice is based on the meeting between place, human and ecology. The artworks are multi-part in different media presented in audiovisual installations, often both indoors and outdoors. They are expressed as sculpture and stop-motion film, where plant material and natural phenomena are brought to life, into sound works with mind-expanding techniques that enable contact with more-than-human forms of consciousness. Jansson initiates and participates in interdisciplinary projects with the aim of using artistic approaches to make global ecological problems more tangible in a local context together with other disciplines.
www.ulrikajansson.com
Eva Bakkeslett (NO)
Artist/CURATOR
Eva Bakkeslett is an artist, curator and cultural activist. Through her work, she conveys connections between nature and culture as a living organism. Communication across species boundaries, bacterial cultures and fermentation as a process and metaphor is central to her work and disseminated in the form of socially engaged and inclusive projects. Her work provides insight into poetic, sensory and transformative processes where new perspectives are revealed and materialised. Eva is curating The Conference of the Birds with Ulrika Jansson.
Karoliina Lummaa (FI)
Postdoctoral Researcher
Karoliina Lummaa (FI) is a postdoctoral researcher specialised in literary studies and environmental humanities. Currently, she is affiliated with the University of Turku and to the independent BIOS Research Unit. Lummaa’s publications include research articles and co-edited anthologies on ecocriticism and posthumanism. She is the author of two monographs focusing on Finnish bird poetry and bird cultures.
Katri Aholainen (FI)
Doctoral Student, Literary Studies and Creative Writing
Katri Aholainen is currently a doctoral student at Turku University. In her master’s thesis, she wrote about the involvement of non-human actors in art-making processes. Her material included Yrjö Kokko’s works Laulujoutsen (1950) and They Come Back (1954). Alongside human beings, whooper swans are emerging as important actors in the works, which were completely disappearing from Finland at the time of their publication. Thanks to the size of the swan books, the Finnish attitudes towards the swans changed and the living conditions of the swans began to improve. In her dissertation, she reflected on how whooper swans participated in the process of creating books to save them.