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 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 spheres of the environment (water, air, 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 Päijänne, Ypykkälampi pond in Kainuu region and Finnish archipelago.
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 here it stands firmly on its 64 legs, on concrete. The year-long artistic process begins from this exhibition. I think of it as the launch of the research vessel. The strange Argo, about to set on a journey, on the bodies of water.
I invite you to use it as a sculpture from which to observe this room and the bodies present. Three of the arms in the pier have vibrating wave cycles to experience. In the very center of the pier you can find a voice reciting words relating to dancing, bodies and listening.
You are welcome to move and rest on the pier. The small wooden pillows are there to support your head when you lie down. I wish to propose a space for kinesthetic curiosity, and to give time for our bodies to sense, to feel and to imagine movement.
During the summer months of 2026, I will be traveling 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, converse, 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 ask what choreographic writing is and can be, particularly in relation to ecological poetics in dance. Recently, the focus has shifted from writing towards choreographic speech. I often recite the scores. To address our dancing bodies by words. And, to find words for the dance emerging.
Credits
Concept and design | 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