It was the time of the year again when a group of students pack themselves with school gear from AV-kioski into a big bus from Matkahuolto and travel all the way (3 hours!) to Nauvo, located in the Turku Archipelago, where all the gear is unloaded and then packed again - this time onto a ferry - eventually reaching the beautiful Seili island.

The Seili island is mostly known for it's sad past as the hospital island for the lepracy patients and later on as a mental institute, dating back to the 1600s. Nowadays the old mental hospital facilities are operated by Turku University, hosting the Archipelago Research Institute. 

But lucky us, since we get to stay there for a whole week during the end of August! My first trip to Seili was a year ago in 2015, when the trip was open to everyone in Degree Programme in Media and Arts for the first time (as it previously had been only to the fine art students). I fell in love with the island, so I went again. I agreed to do a behind-the-scenes-type of a video in exchange, which you can watch below:

Fine Arts students on Seili

At the dock of Seili, the group shot

Modern technology meeting native inhabitant

Over the past six years the group of second year students at Tamk Programme of Fine Arts has visited Seili yearly. This year is  the 50th Jubileum year of the Archipelago Research Institute which is run by University of Turku. 

17 students and four teachers spent an enthusiastic week on the sunny and not so sunny, sometimes even rainy island, learning about the video technique and even from the biology of the Baltic sea. 

Arsi Keva's informative graphic on the process of shooting video

Each of the students worked both in groups and filmed video material on location and created video art which was premiered in an evening gala. Due to the jubileum year, the selected works of the previous year’s were handed over to the Head of the Institute, Professor Ilppo Vuorinen.

In the evening gala, students introducing their works.