ABOAGORA – Between Arts and Sciences invites doctoral candidates and art students from Finland and other Nordic countries to investigate the shifting borders of water and land in the Pre-Symposium event in Turku Archipelago. The theme of ABOAGORA in 2020 is Water, while the Pre-Symposium focuses on the significance of place in research and artistic practices. What are the different senses of place in the work of a researcher or an artist? What do we bring with us, take away and leave behind? How are our practices making their mark on the environment, and how does the environment affect our practices?

In 2020, ABOAGORA Pre-Symposium is a research retreat directed by curator and researcher Taru Elfving (CAA Contemporary Art Archipelago), organized in collaboration with the Archipelago Research Institute of Turku on the island of Seili, a 2-hour boat ride from Turku in the Archipelago Sea. 

Read more about the Pre-Symposium and how to apply: https://aboagora.fi/pre-symposium/

Save the date: On 19–21 August 2020 Aboagora will dive into the element of Water! 

In 2020, Aboagora continues the thematic plan “The Five Rings” and moves from the heavy and concrete Earth to the more liquid and flowing element, water. Water is the beginning of life according to numerous mythological and religious cosmologies. God “made from water every living thing,” as this nomadic conception is formulated in the Qur’an. This is a point where scientific theories of evolution and religious narratives agree: water is the primordial element. Up to 60 % of the adult human body is water, which makes it a vital aspect of medical and physiological research. However, water is rapidly becoming one of the most contested natural resources of our time. Will the basic human need for water cause wars and conflicts in the future, or will it serve as a uniting element that opens our eyes to our common humanity and the need to work together across borders of states, creeds, and ideologies to secure clean water supplies for all in the future? Will water, in the end, prove to be thicker than blood?

In 2020, Aboagora cooperates closely with the multidisciplinary Strategic Research Area Havet/Meri (The Sea), which is carried out as a collaborative effort between the University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University. This opens up aspects to water relating not only to ecology and maritime biology but also to the sea as a lived environment and a site of governance, commerce, international relations, philosophy and ethics.