avoinna joka päivä
2025 _ 35’min _ field recording
zoom h6
ikea vantaa
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excerpt
︎︎︎ listen to the entire piece
avoinna joka päivä (finnish for “open every day”) is a field recording initiative developed alongside the signal extraction project. the idea emerged from my walks around the fringes of sipoonkorpi national park, where I observed how human-made infrastructures confine the forest. Interlaced highways, industrial zones, and residential developments blur the limits between where nature ends and human systems begin.
one of the most striking examples of this entanglement is the massive ikea in vantaa. this complex stands as a symbol of the built environment that encroaches upon and reshapes this forest—both physically and conceptually—in an area that, paradoxically, was likely once home to trees belonging to the sipoonkorpi ecosystem, had there been no human intervention.
in a broader frame, ikea becomes more than just a neighbor to the forest—it represents a new phase in the commodification of living wood. a tree becomes a chair, which enters a home, and eventually returns as waste or recycled material—all within a tightly orchestrated global economy of extraction. this process creates a false sense of circularity. the furniture itself, likely made from wood harvested far from finland, reflects the complexity of tracing a clear line through the flows of energy, matter, and information that underpin our consumer habits.
this blurring of boundaries reveals how economic abstractions connect two seemingly opposite spaces: national parks and ikea stores. but there is something else, something subtler yet quietly striking. despite their contrasting appearances, a shared feature emerges: circular paths. both the forest trail and the exhibition route are designed to guide visitors along predetermined tracks. these paths leave no room for improvisation, no space to wander freely. they are constructed to manage movement, shaped by the logic of centralized planning and spatial control.
these systems—rooted in efficiency—also shape how we experience so-called “protected” zones. like ikea, many national parks have become curated showcases: landscapes preserved not for their ecological complexity or connection to local communities, but for visual consumption. they now serve the tourism and leisure economy, offering sanitized encounters with “nature” that sideline both ecosystems and the people who live near or within them. what emerges is an urban vision of nature—where visitors are passive spectators, disconnected from the living systems they claim to experience.
avoinna joka päivä is a long-duration sound recording that documents a walk along one of these circular, standardized paths—mirroring the layout found in every ikea warehouse. the recording is unedited and unmanipulated, aside from minor equalization to balance low frequencies. my footsteps, my breath, the friction of the recorder against my chest, and the pressure saturating the microphone all become part of the acoustic narrative. I make no attempt to erase or neutralize my presence. on the contrary, I foreground its contradictions. I am there too—walking, consuming. 24/7. buying those objects that were once trees.
