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Akantupakilla / Holding Space with Yarrow is a participatory performance combining plant medicine and hydrobodies in steam. It consists of engagement with yarrow through foot baths, meditation and tincture. 

Yarrow is one of the oldest remedies and is considered to help with many illnesses and conditions. The plant itself have about 150 names in Finnish, all describing its’ different features. The names also connect linguistically to the Baltic Sea area healing culture that is documented in poems and stories. 

Yarrow was one of the plants of Lähirohtola which is a community art project and common plant remedy apothecary created in Kannelmäki and Malminkartano in Helsinki. The project explored together with the local residents about remedies, their use and how the plants are present in human domain and searched a deeper connection with the environment. Important part of the Lähirohtola were the local Plant Ambassadors representing different plants. Lähirohtola, like Holding Space with Yarrow proposes questions such as what may this powerful plant, which many consider merely a weed, mean for us today? How could their voice be heard in human communities?

The artwork premiered and was exhibited in Kunsthalle Turku in Maan Oikeus (Earth Right) -exhibition in 2. – 24.2.2019. In addition to Holding Space with Yarrow, sound installation Earthling Companion Yarrow was exhibited consisting all the many names of yarrow.

Thank you curator Taru Elfving and everyone in Kunsthalle Turku.