Čuoikkariššu (Mosquito Shower)
Čuoikkariššu / Mosquito Shower
by Nicola Renzi & Mai Britt Utsi
Čuoikkariššu / Mosquito Shower
Sound installation • Durational • Finland
Čuoikkariššu / Mosquito Shower explores the tension between discomfort and coexistence through the itchy sound of mosquitoes, tiny beings with an outsized ecological role in increasingly fragile Arctic ecosystems. It is informed by Sámi ecological knowledge, within which mosquito sounds inspire and sustain oral traditions shared by humans and the Land. By showering listeners in intense buzzing, we explore ethical and aesthetic implications of attending to uncomfortable forms of entanglement in times of planetary trouble. Acoustic itch becomes a provocative threshold for rethinking human responsibility toward beings we are commonly trained to reject, transforming reflexive rejection into a bodily experiment in multispecies care.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
Nicola Renzi (he/him) is an Italian-Sardinian anthropologist and ecologist of sound, field recordist and filmmaker. He teaches Anthropology of Music at the University of Turin and Indigenous Art at the University of Helsinki. In Helsinki, he is postdoc at the Centre of Excellence “MultiBEING Justice in Indigenous Societies”, where he investigates the ecological role and cultural significance of mosquito sounds within Indigenous oral traditions of the circumpolar North. With Sámi artist and jurist Ánde Somby, he is currently co-directing the documentary film “Advocate of Yoik”, which explores Sámi yoik as form of ecological advocacy and won Fondazione Cini’s 2025 Diego Carpitella fellowship.
Mai Britt Utsi (she/her) is a Sámi researcher and yoiker based in Guovdageaidnu, Sápmi. She is assistant professor and PhD candidate at the Sámi University of Applied Sciences. Her dissertation’s provisional English title is “Yoiks of Memories, Crafts of Emotions: Varanger Yoiks as an Art of Remembering People”. It presents the analysis of several yoik poems from Varanger, and how these highlight intimate connections between land, people, and more-than-human people (gufihtarnieida and áfruvvá). Since 1990, she has played a central role in developing Sámi higher education, serving as leader of the Sámi teacher education program, as rector (2003–2007) and dean (2012–2016) of Sámi Allaskuvla.
