Laituri | The Pier
(2025)
Laituri | The Pier is a choreographic and architectural object, built to float and drift on waters. It serves as a studio, structure for physical practice, a meeting place, a stage, a sculpture, a resting place, a shelter and a platform for observation. The design allows for the encounter of others in a circle and, on the other hand, a direct connection with the environment (water, climate, land). The Pier has a modular structure which makes it portable and allows different constellations and forms.
When being exhibited on dry land and in public spaces, the pier functions as an inhabitable sculpture including engravings (fragments of text), auditive scores (choreographic speech) and physical sensory stimuli (vibrations, waves) created by installing transducers and speakers in its structure. It can be used for different events such as reading circles, concerts and somatic practices, also by other artists and researchers.
In 2026 the Pier will travel to natural waters in Lake Gilbbesjávri, Finnish archipelago, and Ypykkälampi pond in Kainuu region.
Exhibited at Kuva/Tila gallery 5–21 December 2025
Invitation to experience the first phase of the year-long process at Kuva/Tila, Helsinki
Welcome on the pier shaped as a compass. It is made to float on water. Yet now it stands firmly on its 64 legs, on concrete. The year-long artistic process begins from here. I think of the exhibition as the launch of this research vessel. The strange Argo, about to set on a journey.
I invite you to use it as a sculpture from which to observe this space as well as your own body as part of it. Three of the arms in the pier have vibrating wave cycles to explore. In the very center of the pier you can find a voice reciting words relating to bodies, dancing and listening to the space.
You are welcome to walk, sit and rest on the pier. The small wooden pillows are there to support your head when you lie down. I would like to give time for your bodies to imagine, and feel – to create space for kinaesthetic curiosity.
During the summer months of 2026, I will be travelling with the pier to different waters – lakes, ponds and the sea. The first site will be in the very north, at Lake Gilbbesjávri, Kilpisjärvi over the midsummer. Then Aspö island in the archipelago in July, and Ypykkälampi, a pond on the north side of the Paljakanvaara hill in the Kainuu region in August.
In these locations, the pier will function as a research vessel on water, a floating and drifting studio for physical experimentation and a concrete platform to come together. To practice, talk, read, rest, observe, swim, sing, dance and so on.
The pier will also serve as a structure for thinking and writing. I have started to engrave fragments on the wooden planks. Some of my own and some from others. I relate to these as spells for physical enchantment and remarks on places.
During the research I will ask what choreographic writing is and can be, and particularly in relation to ecological poetics in dance. Recently, the focus has shifted a bit from writing towards choreographic speech.
I like to recite the scores. To address our dancing bodies by words. And try to find words for the dance. It’s difficult, and very exciting.
Credits
Design and Concept | Veli Lehtovaara
Sound design | Jani Hietanen
Texts | Veli Lehtovaara, if not mentioned otherwise
Speaking voice | Kevin Fay, Veli Lehtovaara
Woodwork | Saku Koistinen, Veli Lehtovaara
Drawings | Juho Lindström, Heikki Rosti (1st version)
Production | Entirely Moved | Kaikki Liikkuu ry
In Collaboration with | University of the Arts Helsinki, Research Institute, 6th Research Pavilion, Idiorrhythmic Imaginaries research exhibition
With the Support of | Arts Promotion Center Finland, City of Helsinki, Niilo Helander Foundation