The three-day science and art event Aboagora will take place in the last week of August under the theme Mars, bringer of war. This year’s headliners include Swedish writer-journalist Thella Johnson, known for her Finland-connections. The Mars -theme opens a new seven-year Planets theme season. 

This year, Aboagora, a meeting place for science, art and the public, will explore war from a variety of perspectives. The three-day event will take place for the 14th time at the Sibelius Museum in Turku from 28 to 30 August 2024.  

The warlike theme Mars, the Bringer of War is the opening of Aboagora’s new The Planets theme season. Inspired by Gustav Holst’s (1874-1934) orchestral series The Planets, the theme season will continue until 2030. The seven movements of Holst’s famous composition are named after the planets of our solar system and the mythical gods associated with them. 

In Aboagora, the themes set by the planets are explored in a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary way from a variety of perspectives. The presentations, panels and workshops at this year’s event will address issues such as human rights, post-war recovery and peace, the sounds of war, war memorials, the impact of war on nature and the future after war. The programme also approaches Mars as a celestial body: its astronomical features, musical frequencies and literary imagery. 

Interdisciplinary science and artistic work meet in a diverse programme

Aboagora’s keynote speeches, the Agoras, are free and open to all. The Agora on 28 August, the opening day of the event, will feature warlike sounds and silences from writer-researcher-singer Susanna Hast and researcher Noora Kotilainen. Hast and Kotilainen’s recent book, Sodan pauloissa – Militarismi suomalaisessa yhteiskunnassa, was published last spring.

Despite its warlike theme, the event will end in peace when author and journalist Thella Johnson gives her Agora speech on peace and the post-war era on the closing day in Aboagora on 30 August. Swedish-Finnish Johnson’s debut novel Peace tells the story of three generations of a Finnish family’s struggle for peace after the war. 

Manfred Nowak, Secretary General of the Global Campus of Human Rights, who was originally invited to the programme, is unable to speak due to force majeure. He will be replaced on Thursday 29 August by Professor Koen De Feyter from the University of Antwerp. The title of Professor De Feyter’s speech is The God of War, Palestine, and Emancipatory Human Rights.

Aboagora’s artistic programme approaches this year’s theme from several different directions: the Mars Frequencies performance combines visualisations and microtonal music to illustrate the orbital motion of Mars and its two moons; cosmologist Syksy Räsänen and the multi-art theatre group Kolmas Tila join forces in the Antimilitarism and academic activism session; and we dive into Mars-inspired literature with Jasmine Westerlund and Jenni Turunlahti.

In addition to the Agora talks, Aboagora’s open for all and free programme includes the art exhibition Mars – War Gods and Masculinity by Paul Krispijn and Nana Bolmqvist on the relationship between masculinity and war at Luostarin Välikatu, and Love Antell’s XR-installation Friday evenings at six o’clock at Turku’s red prisoners’ memorial “535” in Kurjenkaivonkenttä.

The full Aboagora programme for registered participants includes panels, workshops and artistic sessions. The Agora talks and the accompanying art exhibition and installation are open to all and free of charge. The Aboagora programme is published at https://aboagora.fi/programme/.

For more information and interview requests:  

producer Petra Piiroinen 
petra.piiroinen@utu.fi 
tel. 050 570 4017 

Aboagora is a meeting place for researchers and artists, an enabler of cooperation and a space for new creation. The project’s annual activities include an international three-day main event organized at the Sibelius Museum in Turku, a research retreat and open Avant Aboagora pre-events. The project launched in Turku’s capital of culture year 2011 is now a pioneer in the field of science and art cooperation. The event is based on the ethos that comprehensive problem solving requires not only interdisciplinary approach but also combining scientific and artistic perspectives. The organizers of Aboagora are the University of Turku, Åbo Akademi, Turku Academy of Arts, Åbo Akademi Foundation and Turku University Foundation. Aboagora in 2024 is supported by the Kone Foundation, the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation, Svenska Kulturfonden, The Federation of Finnish Learned Societies, William Thurings Stiftelsen andOskar Öflund Stiftelsen. 

Posted on: August 26, 2024, by : admin