Reimagining Nature: Bioart from the North

Reimagining Nature: Bioart from the North is an exhibition by artist-researchers Satu Miettinen, Heidi Pietarinen, Amna Qureshi, and Melanie Sarantou from the University of Lapland, Finland. Opening on December 4, 2025, at the Embassy of Finland in Windhoek. The exhibition explores innovative intersections of bioart, design, and science inspired by the nature of northern Finland.
The artist-researchers behind this exhibition are the founders of the BioARTech Laboratory (est. 2019) at the University of Lapland. They share a deep respect for Arctic nature and its by-products, finding new ways to incorporate organic and biological materials into creative practice. Their works highlight how art can act as a bridge between human and non-human worlds, fostering dialogue and shared authorship across disciplines and species.
Featured works include the triptych, which reimagines natural materials through photography and textile art, exploring transformation and collaboration between art and science.
The exhibition presents “Kasvio - still life of plants” by Satu Miettinen, a photographic exploration of plants such as rowanberry, swamp puffer, lingonberry, milk thistle* with ordinary flowers like gerbera (African daisy), cloves and chrysanthemum. In the arrangements plants from the north and south mix. Kasvio is about studying the details of plants and flowers from our everyday environment and relaxing while focusing in their details: colors, forms, and the smells that you can imagine. Summer nights with swamp puffer will take you into another world.
Additionally, it showcases experiments with a discarded Arctic raw material, “Reindeer Blood” and “Roots Stitching”, transformed into textiles and digital artworks exhibited internationally in Prague, Windhoek, and Antwerp. Here, the textiles take on a new three-dimensional presence, spreading and flowing like a cloak.
Together, these works invite audiences to reflect on transformation, materiality, and our ecological kinship in bioart. You are warmly welcome!