03/09/2026
Opening 11.09 at Kunsthall 3,14 our next PARABOL presentation!
Čuoikkariššu / Mosquito Shower explores the tension between discomfort and coexistence through the itchy sound of mosquitoes, tiny beings with an outsized ecological role in Arctic ecosystems. It invites audiences to rethink mosquitoes and their sounds not as nuisances, but as vital participants in a dense web of relations linking humans, multispecies communities and environmental change.
Changes in sonic environments often accompany — and sometimes even precede — changes in the landscape. In fragile Arctic ecologies, even the smallest shifts matter. Mosquitoes play essential roles: they support food webs, influence animal movement, and contribute to the balance of tundra life.
Mai Britt Utsi (Uhca Pier Esthera Máijá) is a Sámi researcher and juoigi based in Guovdageaidnu (Kautokeino). A PhD candidate at the Sámi University of Applied Sciences, she works with Sámi storytelling and joik traditions in the Varanger region, and has helped shape Sámi higher education since the 1990s as teacher-education leader, rector (2003–2007) and dean (2012–2016).
Nicola Renzi is an Italian-Sardinian sound artist, field recordist and ecologist of sound. As a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki’s MultiBEING Centre of Excellence, he studies mosquito sounds and their eco-aesthetic significance in Indigenous oral traditions of the circumpolar North, using collaborative sound art and immersive field recording as core methods.
Together, Nicola and Máijá create sound installations, podcasts, listening workshops and scientific publications that foreground Sámi joik and environmental sounds as preferred mediums. Their installation «Čuoikkariššu / Mosquito Shower” was developed in March 2026 with support from the Arctic Art Institute and has since been presented, by invitation or official selection, at festivals in Oslo, London, Bologna and Helsinki.
