Just spent a few days on Uto, the outermost island amongst 50,000 in the Finnish Turku Archipelago. I was there with a group of artists from the Frontiers in Retreat network and students and professors from Aalto University and Helsinki University of the Arts. On the long ferry journey I ran a workshop on ‘Viking Readings of the Marine Environment’ and was delighted by two participants’ intimate childhood knowledge of navigating in kayaks in the brackish Baltic sea and by another participant’s attempt to use her hair as a sensing/navigating tool. Many aspects of the island, including the boathouses were inspiring for The Water Age novel I am currently working on.

On the island Bruce Gilchrist and I ran another workshop considering how we process experience of a site through language, drawing, and mapping.