Terhi Hakola
Nest (Pesä) is part of an art project that emerged after the devastating bushfires of 2020, where vast areas of forests, encompassing our Kangaroo Valley property, burnt down. Nest (Pesä) is a visual expression of the grief for the destruction and death – of trees, birds, human and animal homes – and a quest for hope. Working with the materials retrieved from the bush – fibre from the burnt trees, found feathers, grasses, sticks – became a ritual, a prayer, for the healing of what has been damaged. The wounds of the trees are my wounds; my existence is dependent on the life of plants, birds, insects, rivers.
The Nest project sums up my art vision, intention, and practice. When working ‘with’ rather than ‘about’ our non-human fellow beings, the process and the interactions – the listening, sensing, seeing – mould the work, indeed become the work, as important as the resulting visual expression.