The Routes Of Helsinki is:
Mikko Haapoja, soundscapes, bowed lyre, live electronics
illmari, spoken word
Soundscapes from boundaries between nature and the city – built and unbuilt. The Routes of Helsinki tells about the roots and the present of the capital of Finland. In the project, sound artist Mikko H. Haapoja records Helsinki urban sounds and creates audio-visual installations, sound art compositions and multidisciplinary art performances. In Akusmata Sound Weekend 2018 Haapoja will perform with his bowed lyre and the soundscapes featured with spoken word artist illmari whose Helsinki poems add another dimension to the sound art of The Routes of Helsinki.
Since 2011, various The Routes of Helsinki works have been presented in Helsinki and New York galleries, and in Helsinki City Museum, Music Centre and public city space, including the metro platforms of Helsinki Central Railway station. Mikko H. Haapoja’s sound art piece ‘Luotisuora / Beeline’ is a part of the permanent ‘Helsinki bites’ exhibition in the new Helsinki City Museum. Together with spoken word artist illmari and visual artist Elina Aho, Haapoja has made audio-visual live performances since 2014 under the name Helsingin reitit: Sound Landscapes. Furthermore, illmari’s Helsinki-poems together with The Routes of Helsinki pieces ‘Twilight’ and ‘The First Route’ are included in haapoja & illmari collective’s folk-rap- sound art album ‘Uusi maailma’ (‘The New World’) released in late 2017. ‘The First Route’ (‘Ensimmainen reitti’) has been released also as a video art piece in 2018: https://youtu.be/
See more: http://mikkohaapoja.net/