SEA Case Study 3 – Five Salmon and Two Fish (Viisi Lohta ja Kaksi Kalaa) 

This case study is based on the reading provided later in the unit (Miettinen & Sarantou, 2021). The artivist experiment titled Five Salmon and Two Fish explored the use of a place-specific installation on the Kemi river bank as an artivist action titled ‘salmon war’, or lohisota. Ephemeral textile art and activist performance art were used to remonstrate against the legal sanctioning of a Finnish environmental graffiti artist who propagated environmental action against the disappearance of salmon from the Kemijoki (Kemi River) in Finnish Lapland. In support of Professor Vesa Puuronen, who was legally sanctioned for the large sum of €20,000 in 2021, four SEA artists. The fine was for placing graffiti of two salmon pictures, the slogans “Free Salmon river” and “Free Kemi river,” in addition to a poem, “Eternal river is grieving the greed of people,” on the private property of the electricity company Kemijoki Oy at Pirttikoski and Seitakorva (Viinikka, 2020). Puuronen used the graffiti to protest against the newly proposed Sierilä power plant to be built on the banks of the Kemi.

A textile installation and performance were the media used to help draw attention to human and sustainability issues relevant to the Kemi and some local communities in Finnish Lapland living in proximity and harmony with the river. The artivist action using place, space, and textile strips sought to take a stand and raise awareness of the decline of the Kemi and its surrounding environment—which has been negatively impacted by power plants and other commercial activities—and the destruction of indigenous salmon populations of the Kemi. Before making the installation, artivism used graffiti and slogans on the private property of a power company to achieve a similar goal. One of the actions was sanctioned and the other was initiated to raise awareness of such unprecedented sanctioning.

Photo: The SEA installation Five Salmon and Two Fish (viisi lohta ja kaksi kalaa) near Arctic Rovaniemi (Finland),
by Satu Miettinen, Taina Kontio, and Melanie Sarantou (2021). Photo credits: Satu Miettinen.