RAMPARUOHO – a work combining text and textile art: writer Isa Hukka’s text installation ‘linnaea borealis‘ and visual artist Hele Okkonen‘s kinetic rya ‘luikero‘.
at Rauma Triennale, in Rauma Art Museum, Finland, 7.6.-21.9.2025.
CREDITS: sound designer of linnaea borealis recoding: Io Pettersson. graphic design assistance of text installation: Susanna Liikala.
About the piece
ramparuoho: linnaea borealis & luikero
Some local names for twinflower in Finnish:
rampine, hiirenkello, sirkunkello, luikero, nuvana, luuvaloruoho, nivelheinä, jäsenheinä, nyrjäysheinä, suoniruoho, tyräruoho, venymäheinä, viruntaheinä, lemmeruoho, kiimaruoho, valuruoho, kurjenmätkin, vanamo.
Many know the plant called ‘ramparuoho’ as ‘twinflower’ instead. Ramparuoho is a Finnish compound word, consisting of ‘rampa’ – crip, and ‘ruoho’ – grass. A Great Man gave His name to the plant, which led to its current scientific label, linnaea borealis. However, the plant has local names, deriving from practices of care it has been used for. The concept of crip, refers also to the crip-artistic methods of the work. By crip art, the artists mean critical, ecological, and queer disability art.
The artists have come together to address a question: how to narrate and name ramparuoho? What does ramparuoho tell us, and about us? Hukka’s starting point for their text, linnaea borealis, has been their method called rampa/crip writing. Through crip writing, they explore myths of disability, among other things. In Okkonen’s work, luikero, the slow, alternative and kinetic rya practice and ramparuoho are in conversation.
