You are walking and you approach a Swamp. You make a choice and the blueberries are bluer than ever before.
Swamp – Walking Within the Frame is a four-hour site-specific performance in the Sanginjoki Nature Reserve. Audience members travel by bus from Cultural Centre Valve to Sanginjoki and walk through the swamp, navigating parts of the journey alone, guided by a smartphone. The piece brings the ecological restoration of a drained swamp and the eco-utopia of the Iriadamant community into the same landscape. The swamp is a borderland of human dominion, a site of negotiations and struggles. Swamps have been cleared, burned, ploughed, blasted, and ditched. At Sanginjoki, ditches are now being dammed one shovelful at a time in an effort to restore the natural flow of water.
In 1991, the Iriadamant community, composed mainly of French and Belgian members, set up camp at Sanginjoki. Emulating North American Indigenous cultures, they sought a non-consumerist, natural lifestyle. However, within the group (which later developed into a cult), all was not as harmonious as it seemed.
The work contrasts this utopia with the promise of economic wealth brought by drainage. Both utopias are challenged and re-examined. The cult disbanded; the drained swamp is now being restored.
In the piece, Sanginjoki appears as a memory and an archive, where human activity has left material and cultural layers. The audience moves through these strata over the course of four hours. The performance smartphone provides instructions, narrates, and guides the walker deeper into the terrain.
Who leads, and how are power dynamics negotiated when the swamp, the walker, the phone, and traces of humanity meet? What remains in the landscape of human efforts both to control and to save, and what traces do utopias leave in us?
The Walking Within the Frame Series
Swamp – Walking Within the Frame is part of the Walking Within the Frame series by Kristina Junttila and Maria Oiva. Previous parts of the series took place in the Viikki Arboretum in Helsinki in 2023, Bodø in 2024, and Rávdnjevággi in Tromsø in 2025.
Throughout the series, a smartphone acts as a guide, performer, and travelling companion for the spectator. Each part is created in relation to the specific site and its historical, political, and ecological layers. The Rávdnjevággi instalment explored the hidden Sámi history of the area and was realised in collaboration with Åarjelhsaemien Teatere / Sydsamisk Teater.
Artistic Directors
Maria Oiva is a performance artist and theatre director who has spent over two decades creating works in which the spectator becomes a co-actor and technology participates in the performance. As the founder of #digiteatteri, Oiva has investigated the agency, power, and bodily impact of digital media. The work of #digiteatteri was recognised with the TINFO Award in 2019. Swamp – Walking Within the Frame continues Oiva’s exploration of how technology shapes perception, movement, and the human relationship with the environment.
Kristina Junttila is a Finnish-Norwegian performance artist and director whose work is grounded in site, context, and audience. Junttila creates pieces that expand performance formats and invite diverse modes of audience participation. She is part of the artistic leadership of the Tromsø-based company Ferske Scener.
Performance Details
Premiere:
- Friday 21 August 2026 at 17:30
Other Performances:
- Sunday 23 August at 11:00 and 16:00
- Monday 24 August at 17:30
- Tuesday 25 August at 17:30
- Thursday 27 August at 17:30
- Friday 28 August at 17:30
- Saturday 29 August at 11:00 and 16:00
- Sunday 30 August at 11:00 and 16:00
Departure Point: Cultural Centre Valve Café, Hallituskatu 7, Oulu
Duration: Approx. 4 hours, including bus travel
Performance Languages: Finnish or English
Phone Content Languages: Finnish, English, and Northern Sámi. The Northern Sámi version continues the multilingual work of the Walking Within the Frame series and Ferske Scener, serving as a conscious language-political choice. The Oulu performance does not address or seek to represent the Sámi experience.
Co-producer Ferske Scener is a Tromsø-based performance arts collective whose work engages with the intersections of Norwegian, Sámi, Kven, and Finnish cultures.
The performance is not wheelchair accessible. It takes place partly across challenging forest and swamp terrain.
Weather-appropriate clothing is required; wellington boots are recommended.
No specialised technical skills are needed, but participation requires reading and listening to content on the performance smartphone.
Subject to weather conditions.
Tickets
Standard ticket: €22
Concessions (students, unemployed, pensioners): €14
Tickets are available from Ticketmaster and the Valve ticket office. Kaikukortti is accepted (redeemable at the Valve ticket office).
Valve ticket office: +358 8 5584 7575 | valve.lippumyymala@ouka.fi
Ticketmaster: https://www.ticketmaster.fi/venue/kulttuuritalo-valve-oulu-tickets/valt/333
Credits & Production
Concept & Artistic Direction: Kristina Junttila and Maria Oiva
Performers: Seija-Leena Salo and Heta Haapsamo
Site-Specific Design & Realisation: Kristina Junttila, Maria Oiva, and Seija-Leena Salo
Sound Design: Paavo Impiö
Text, Site-Specific Dramaturgy & Spoken Parts: Seija-Leena Salo
Dramaturgical Support: Kristin Bjørn
Producer: Anna Haaraoja
Northern Sámi Translation: Seija Somby
Mobile Application: Zoneatlas
Production: Reality Research Centre, Ferske Scener, and Cultural Cooperative ILME
The work is part of Cultural Cooperative ILME’s From Here to Art travel agency and the official programme of Oulu2026 European Capital of Culture.
Supported by the Finnish-Norwegian Cultural Institute, Valve Neighbourhood Culture, Cultural Cooperative ILME, Arts Council Norway, BarentsKult, and the Niilo Helander Foundation.
In collaboration with Metsähallitus, Friends of Loppula Association (Loppulan ystävät ry), and Loppula Nature Centre.
More information: https://todellisuus.fi/suokavelyntiella/
