Helsinki, 23.8.2023
At a time like this when nature’s systems collapse one by one, there’s a war next door, fascists are leading the country in mink coats, and winds, summers, forests, desires are not as we knew them, I wonder what makes sense to you. Is it a fest or rather a rest?
For me, tonight, sense makes a test: what if we treated the festival as a medium for transformation. A transient state that would host raw emotions, feed your new needs, invite wisdom and excitement to open you, hold you, root you in suggestions only to let you go, grow again.
It might bring you into a place where you lose all that was familiar. It might be dark. things might happen.
The map becomes useless when everything around you changes constantly. I navigated through poetic, energetic, biological and political layers dodging boredom and articulating arrangements, solid structures.
Some call themselves witches, some whores, some ancient wizards, some crip-queer-body-minds. Some are old forest knowledge holders, some have trained in bird language, some hear, some dream, some see with their skin. All exploring ways to communicate with the unknown.
How do you know, or do you know?
I have been imagining you. I have been flirting and debating with you. Imagining, planning, rearranging, dreaming about you. I have carried you to hidden places, secret meetings, sacred promises. The closer we get the heavier you become. It’s time you continue by yourself from here. Dear festival, Baltic Circle 2023.
Fly baby, high baby,
bye.
Love,
Hanna Parry, Artistic Director