In this talk, Riitta Ikonen will discuss her multidisciplinary visual arts practice, which includes winter swimming in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of New York, building community saunas, curating exhibitions visible only at low tide, and dressing hundreds of people as mushrooms, seaweed, mud, and Weedos. While seaweed bathing and suits will be discussed, this is not a practical workshop, but will offer context to the event at Reef Beach on the 10th of May.
Finnish visual artist Riitta Ikonen runs the global winter swimming club ‘Seachanges’ and steers a community sauna in Rockaway Beach, NY. She received her MA from the Royal College of Art in 2008. Ikonen is a member of A.S.S. (The American Stinkhorn Association) and a reigning champion of the Telluride costume competition.
Eyes as Big as Plates is a 14-year collaboration exploring interspecies relations relations with the Norwegian photographer, artist, and writer Karoline Hjorth, who received her MA from the University of Westminster in 2009. Island Darkroom presents many of the seaweed-focused Eyes as Big as Plates works this May on the Isle of Lewis.
Ikonen and Hjorth have travelled across five continents and 17 countries, using art and action research to ask, “What is nature?” The ongoing project’s images have been exhibited, published, and collected by art institutions worldwide, including the Barbican Centre in London, the Norwegian Museum of Photography, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki. The first book in the series was nominated for ‘Best First Photobook in the World’ at the Paris Photo/Aperture Awards. The second book is available directly from the project’s website, and the third will be published in 2027.
The duo’s previous ventures include public art commissions for the PyeongChang Winter Olympics (2018) and appeared on the TED stage in Boston in 2020. Eyes as Big as Plates continues to challenge conventional narratives on how humans relate to their surroundings across cultures and landscapes, calling for collective and synchronized environmental stewardship.
