Mapping the belonging is an exercise in psychogeography – an investigation on how a specific location, in this case the Island of Vallisaari, can affect the emotions and behaviour of a person. As participants, our point of departure will be the ‘utility maps‘ drawn by Helsinki Biennial 2023 art technicians. These are maps that represent the different experiences they had during the installation of some of the artworks of this biennial. During this event, while we build on their mapped perceptions and walk through their experiences, we will also depart (or dérive and wander across multiple artworks and installations on the island) to create our own mapped journey of our individual experiences during the visit.

Anna Tsing (professor of anthropology at the University of California) expresses the art of “noticing”. To look up, down in micro or macro lens. By using psychogeography, we may be able to shift or drift. But in Vallisaari, we have to comply with the history of the island and its rules. As a worker in the biennale, I raised up questions about the use of the island as an artistic practice base place. The use of the space raises political, ecological and also practical questions. How to deal with the ecology of the place and at the same time the artistic practicality of the island?

Psychogeography is a concept invented by the Marxist theorist Guy Debord in 1955 in order to explore different localities. Inspired by the French nineteenth century poet and writer Charles Baudelaire’s concept of the flâneur – an urban wanderer – Debord suggested playful and inventive ways of navigating the urban environment in order to examine its architecture and spaces.