How does this feel? A stitch on my scalp. It’s a sharp and filling pain that goes through my body like electricity, burning. My arm instinctively lifts up like a bow with an open palm, plunging with all its weigh towards the head. Did I kill it? I keep walking.
After some hours, on my way back to the house I can barely think. I’m running, I’m fleeing.

For me, to think in mosquitoes is to think in body and scale. I heard about the Lapland mosquitoes in that way people talk about something that is not worth to be talked about, but still everyone does. Like some kind of revenge, the insignificance given to the mosquito seems to want to deny their overwhelming potential. The aggressiveness of the massive modular body, forced me to change my behavior, my movements. My body reacts like electricity, it fills me with desperation taking over my thoughts and emotions.

I explored different ways of interacting with mosquitos through my body. In this body relation I see possibilities and conditions for exploring vulnerability, power, impotence and cruelty. I search in myself for what I’m thinking can be the minimal trace of violence as I let myself bite or react to the insect.

For this project I stayed for 4 weeks in Mustarinda residency (July 2017) and went almost every day into the forest for a couple of hours. The following teaser is composed of 5 videos works, a small and careful selection from the entire project.

Documentation by Jakob Johannsen
Supported by Kone Foundation and Finnish Cultural Foundation