The art installation I, a Bat invited the audience to the Puimala in Fiskars to come near a bat, towards identification and the awakening of empathy. Several colonies of various bat species live the old threshing barn. They move in for summer to give birth and to take care of their young. In the night they go out to hunt insects.
The old threshing barn must appear different to bats compared to us humans. What if we would try to observe the space like bats? Would it be possible for us to understand the experience of a bat and to experience identification?
Empathy: to understand the essence of the other, their situation, their being. To allow the other to be other, a stranger, but to try to understand the other as an individual.
There was a discussion event about bats and empathy as part of the I, a Bat installation. In the event the members of the research group BatLab Finland of Finnish Museum of Natural History Piia Lundberg and Katarina Meramo discussed together with Leena Kela and the curator of the Niitty-Meadow exhibition Taru Elfving.
Art installation Leena Kela, sound design Marko Hietala, echolocating device Roope Pellinen and Matti Husu, the bat sounds Harry Lehto. Bat experts Thomas Lilley and Jarmo Markkanen, panelists Piia Lundberg and Katarina Meramo. The work is supported by The Arts Promotion Centre Finland.
The art installation and discussion were organized as part of the collateral events of the Niitty-Meadow exhibition in collaboration with ONOMA cooperative and CAA Contemporary Art Archipelago.
In the image brown long-eared bat (Plecotus auritius), photographer Jarmo Markkanen.
