Dan McCabe is currently working with the community of Hyrynsalmi in Finland, as part of the Spaced North by Southeast program.

Dan McCabe’s artistic practice is concerned with critically interrogating the logic of contemporary suburban and urban landscapes, and of our relationships and lived experiences within these environments.

Recent works question our contemporary relationship with the natural landscape, trying to understand the contradiction between suburbia and a longing for nature evident in pursuits such as swimming, camping and bushwalking. McCabe is interested in what drives our desire to control nature and experience it in codified forms, evident in the practices of owning and maintaining blocks of land and luxury camping, and exploring the resultant consequences of this controlled loss – what happens when it starts to unravel, or when a minority faction subverts the suburban ideal.

Here, Dan shares an update from Hyrynsalmi.

Heading into the last week of my second residency at Mustarinda, I have been thinking about the people and interactions from over the last two months. It has been a bit of a whirlwind to say the least. In this rural part of Finland time seems to be fluid, it is both short and long. Yesterday sometimes feels like a week ago, while other times I can’t believe another week has passed so quickly. 

Although I had a few specific activities planned, most of my research or time has been spent doing things on a whim. It is not uncommon to get a call in the morning, or maybe someone arrives at the house, and instead of spending the day in the studio I ended up spending the day outside or dropping stuff off somewhere or helping move something or going fishing. In these spontaneous adventures I found the most rewarding experiences, meeting locals and seeing parts of the landscape I hadn’t and wouldn’t of seen or met. However little the original task was, these interactions built relationships of various sorts over the 3 months I have spent at Mustarinda this year. After receiving a loaf of rye bread from a neighbours mother-in-law I had never met, I found out that through these various interactions, I had become know as the “boy from Mustarinda”. This awareness of the people in the area by each member of the community (both new and old) is something unique to these country towns, lacking somewhat from my home town in Perth. 

A few times I got bogged or the electric car “Elcat” conked out on the road between destinations, and one of these locals came to help me out (twice!). People are nice here. Even though people have busy lives on the farm or around town, there is less urgency than in the cities. Connection to other human beings is important. The Finn’s are not the most talkative bunch, but people seem to be there for you when it counts. Less filler conversation, more direct and sometimes blunt answers. This was evident in the small group of people that gathered each Tuesday and Wednesday evening at the local school workshop to make “Tommi” knives, a traditional design from Hyrynsalmi dating back some 150 years. Under local blacksmith Mauri Heikkinen, and the help of several others in the class, I have made two knives. Was a bit of a challenge at times with Mauri not speaking a word of english and many of the older men in the group not speaking any either. There was lots of fragmented translating between blacksmiths, but all were inviting and helpful. What I did realise is that everyone, with their varying degrees of experience, has their own opinion on how a knife should be made. 

In the house I have slowed down, allowed more time to think, read and daydream a bit. There has been a theme to this time though, the activities centred around local hobbies, jobs or common tasks and the thinking geared more towards the history of and current relationship that people have with the land they live on, farm on and take from. In some ways attempting to unpack the complex and sometimes exploitative relationship between humans and natural resources, modern technology and traditional connections, isolated communities and urban hubs. Not so much a critique of the relationship people have with nature in this area, but trying to understand or comprehend these trends on a global scale. For a community of people that appear to be more/literally involved in they ways they physically take from nature either through hunting, foraging, or chopping down trees for firewood, there seems to be a profound sense of respect and responsibility for, and knowledge of their surrounding environment and the other creatures that inhabit it. There is much that can be learnt from the current way of life of people who choose to live in this part of the world.

Tagging along to several hunts with locals from the Hyrynslami area, has been more life research than art research, although it has been influencing my thoughts and work heavily. Having gradually moved away from eating meat over the last 5 years, these intimate experiences observing animals from their life, death and preparation for food has been confronting. Questioning the ethics and environmental impact of meat consumption I felt it was really important to force myself to confront this issue head on. To prepare the body, feel its skin, take out its organs. It is so easy to passively buy and eat prepackaged meat, there is a disconnection between our consumption and its origins and impact, something that echoes through all aspects of consumer life today. I guess I was contemplating the mindset that if someone is unable to take the life of an animal, to be confronted with that reality, then what right do they have to eat it?

Seeing a 300kg elk or a small hare lying dead in the forest, and then performing or assisting the skinning, gutting and dissecting was intense. It was emotionally moving and is taking a long time to process. But from that intimate interaction grew a new admiration for these animals. Having watched birds over the spring, I was always seeing the wild animals at a distance. It should always be this way, but having this opportunity, feeling their warmth was something else. For some in this area of Finland there is an admiration for these incredible, majestic animals, and for others there is not. For some this activity isn't a time for reflection, existential pondering. Besides meals made from these animals that I have prepared or assisted personally, I haven’t consumed meat. This experience has concreted the position for me that it is unnecessary. I do not intend to eat meat in the future. This isn't a criticism of these local hunting groups, I respect their active participation in their consumption. For most of the Finns I met hunting was not glorified, but appeared to be a responsibility. The shooter and fellow hunters didn't shy away from dealing with the consequences of their actions, and after inspecting the animal it was time to get to work spending up to several hours preparing a single animal. 

If we all were personally active in our consumption, the world might be a different place. This isn't specific to just meat or hunting, but to forestry, mining, food production, and many other aspects of contemporary life. We’ve become so efficient and detached from what is involved in taking or making the things we use in daily life, that it is hardly ever consciously connected anymore. If one had to personally chop down a tree, disrupt an ecosystem, take it from a forest, prepare it and make a bedside table, one would be less likely to replace it every 2 years. If you had to kill, gut and chop up an animal to have a burger, be confronted with that reality, I imagine many wouldn’t do it. Our value systems and connection is arguably way out of whack. This isn't a new revelation, yet still many parts of society continue along this contradictory and unsustainable pathway. 

-Dan McCabe