Annu Wilenius
Nomadic Science Fiction
Experiencing Diversity And Alterity Through Urbanising Mongolia
100479
Nomadic Science Fiction is a travel book and a Bildungsroman. What
started as a personal adventure with a few friends developed into a decade-long
series of cultural encounters, ethnographic studies, artworks, exhibitions,
publications, residencies, and transdisciplinary exchanges between Western
countries and Mongolia.
The book narrates the experience of travelling in strange lands
and inhabiting different roles in the world of artistic production. It gives an
account of nomadism and urbanization in Mongolia, as seen by an artist, a
curator and a researcher. For Wilenius “Mongolian elegance” refers to the fluid
life patterns that create wonderful practical and aesthetic compositions in an
infinite universe of new possibilities. Both nomadism and science fiction lead
to radical alterity and hybridity: towards acceptance of unsurmountable
difference and strangeness in others and in oneself. “Things come together in
the most unexpected ways and suddenly they make ‘perfect sense’ and thus great
works of art and great exhibitions come to being.”
The book was intended as Annu Wilenius’ (1974 - 2020) doctoral
thesis for the Department of Art of Aalto University.