BURN INDEX
2023–2025
With climate change, wildfires are becoming more frequent and more intense. They are spreading faster and lasting longer. The wildfires in southern Europe in 2023 appear exemplary of this development - about fourteen percent of the surface area of the island of Rhodes burned just in one week, while the wildfires in southern Italy lasted for months.
As a socially concerned image maker, these vast and violent forest fires interest me for several reasons. First of all, I am visually interested in the traces produced by burning and heat. Secondly, the translation or adaptation of a burn mark into a photographic representation appears fascinating because it also provides a platform for theoretical considerations, re-evaluation of an idea of a document. Thirdly, I am concerned about the impact of wildfires on our global climate conditions, and humans’ part in their expansion.
Rather than depicting actual fires, I concentrate on the imprints, traces, vestiges. I have travelled to Greece, Spain, Australia, Portugal, the USA (Los Angeles) and South Korea to witness the material effects of large scale wildfires and document their multifaceted imprints. I see burnt forests and bushes as indexical signs of the fires.
More than a question or an answer, my work is about thinking with materials. I approach the subject with documentary methods, in the spirit of elementary politics.
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The body of work consists of landscape images and portraits of burned trees. In addition, I have been experimenting with works that I call firegrams – I place branches of trees on large wooden panels and burn the background black with a blowtorch. The artworks are like photograms but made with fire. Also, I have rubbed the burned trees and their branches with white cloths, and thus produced a kind of charcoal drawings. I also collect ashes from the burned forests and later turn these into artworks.
Gallery Heino, Helsinki, Finland 2025 (©️Pertti Kärki / Galleria Heino)
Hämeenlinna Art Museum, Finland 2024
Ii Art Biennial, Finland
