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Nella Aarne

@nellaaarne

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curator, birder, memer

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I visited the UK for the first time since leaving in 2023. It had been too long. On the day of the outgoing flight, I woke up around 6am with an inexplicable pain in my leg and was convinced that I was having a thrombosis. I packed what felt like nearly everything I own and was convinced that I would die from a stroke during the flight. I didn’t. The pain in my leg disappeared as soon as we landed. At the baggage reclaim, I confronted the fact that, for the first time since the age of 19, I had arrived without any kind of home waiting for me there and with my entire life set up somewhere else. A few days later, I sat in the analyst’s consulting room – also for the first time in three years, trying to articulate this realisation – but it took minutes to utter the words, and my eyes were streaming with tears. “What did you expect to discover?” he asked me. “That I knew this already”, I said.

To my great relief, I discovered that I still had friends and acquaintances there. I met some of the closest ones, whom I had missed terribly, and was grateful for every second spent together and every word exchanged. Even the guy running the cross harbour service in Bristol asked what brings me back on his boat. He had no idea how loaded his question felt, but I managed to keep it simple and say that I was about to have lunch with my former colleagues. It felt like coming up for air, realising that others really had witnessed me occupying those spaces and that my presence in them had meant something, at least for some, at least for a while. I’ll never stay away for as long again.

I was asked whether it might be possible to think of home as something that can be in two places. No choice, I gather. Nearly 20 years later, I can only begin to fathom the cost of the decision I made in my late teens: I will always have to live between two places, both equally formative and important but in different ways. How reductive of me to think that I could just “return home”, almost as if pretending that a huge chunk of my life never happened. Not that I ever wanted to, it just felt easier than facing the heartache of leaving. But the work of mourning must be done. by @nellaaarne

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3 months ago

I spend a lot of time stressing out about potentially looking unkempt so I try really hard to look really neat and when I’m nervous about a social situation I accidentally take it really far and suddenly I’m in a suit and then someone takes a photo of me and I ask myself: “Who is that?” by @nellaaarne

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5 months ago

Top 3 of 2025

Life highlights
1. My very fortunate and privileged life feels like an increasingly accurate manifestation of my desire, encompassing love, home and meaningful connections. I am grateful for all that I have and for the work I’ve been able to do to help me get here.
2. There have been many moments when I consciously felt that I’d rather be nowhere else — while having breakfast, birdwatching, walking through the city, eating fries, drinking wine, sitting on the sofa, going to sleep.
3. It has dawned on me that while I may fantasise about a particular kind of experience of belonging in a community or having a place in the world, it’s not possible — not due to any foundational flaw of mine but, rather, due to my instinctual apprehension towards the very thing that I think I long for. Instead of sinking into recurring existential crises over this, I’m coming to terms with the fact that there is a different, better suited, more enjoyable way to be in the world and this, funnily enough, eases me into feeling that I can belong.

Bird sightings
1. Long-tailed ducks, Lauttasaari
2. Eurasian penduline tit, Otaniemi
3. Long-eared owl(et)s, Seurasaari

Texts that best responded to a need
1. Iida Rauma, Hävitys
2. Lysis
3. Dodie Bellamy, When the Sick Rule the World
+ Atte Koskinen reading his translation of William Wordsworth’s poem Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798

Tracks on repeat
1. Janet Jackson, Together Again
2. Gilbert O’Sullivan, Alone Again (Naturally)
3. Paperi T, Sä tuut unohtuu

Art
1. Trajal Harrell: Köln Concert, Sivuaskel
2. Euripides Laskaridis: Lapis Lazuli, &
3. Sandra Mujinga: Sløyfe, Den Frie

Best moments of joyful decadence were facilitated by
1. Bona Fide (again)
2. Osteria dei Mancini
3. Cafelito/Vinolito (the epic Basque cheesecake)

Best decisions
1. Moving flats
2. Upon recognising the limits of my capacity, handing something big over to the Other
3. Baking a polenta cake with orange and saffron (twice)

•Continued in comments• by @nellaaarne

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10 months ago

The desire of desire has really put the soundness of my mind to the test, as I’ve been pulled to enjoy and suffer the gap, the distance, the silence. Love and desire have revealed themselves as intertwined with absence and death, and the Text has emerged as the ultimate interface for channelling their most intense manifestations. The question is how to love without longing to burn in the intensity of absence. I’m supposed to take a break. Easier said than done, when theory, as opposed to life itself as praxis, lends itself to the best kind of flight into abstraction as absence. by @nellaaarne

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10 months ago

A few weeks ago, I joined lots of other speakers at the Positioning symposium organised by Publics, and tried to answer a series of questions to position my thinking and practice. Here are a few snippets of me trying to explain what I think it means to choose life over some kind of death. by @nellaaarne

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a year ago

Ke 29.10.
Klo 18:30
Ulrika, Leppäsuonkatu 11, Helsinki

A-ryhmän lukupiiri jatkaa Mikhail Bakuninin tekstillä ‘Federalism, Socialism, Anti-theologism’, jossa hän muotoilee kumouksellisen visionsa uudenlaisesta yhteiskunnasta. Teksti on julkaistu versio puheesta, jonka Bakunin esitti Geneven rauhankongressissa vuonna 1867. Bakuninille ominaisesti teksti on keskeneräinen ja, otsikostaan huolimatta, kattaa vain federalismia ja sosialismia käsittelevät osuudet.

Lukupiiri on kaikille avoin, ja kokoontumisten keskiössä on avoin keskustelu. Osallistuminen ei edellytä tekstien lukemista etukäteen, mutta materiaaliin tutustuminen ennakkoon tekee ajatusten vaihdosta antoisampaa. Halutessamme voimme lukea katkelmia tekstistä myös yhdessä. Jokainen voi osallistua itselleen luontevalla tavalla, sekä aktiivisesti keskustellen että kuunnellen. Tapaamisten ensisijainen kieli on suomi ja lukumateriaalit ovat englanniksi.

Teksti on ladattavissa linkistä biossa.

Voit ilmoittautua mukaan ja kysellä lisätietoja sähköpostitse: nella@nellaaarne.art

Sisään Ulrikaan pääsee painamalla summeria ”Ulrika” ja odottamalla oven avaajan saapumista. Tila on esteetön ja sinne pääsee myös pyörätuolilla. by @nellaaarne

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a year ago

The Parliament House never looked this good. by @nellaaarne

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a year ago

A-ryhmän anarkokommunismilukupiiri kokoontuu ensimmäistä kertaa!

Ke 8.10.
Klo 18:00
Ulrika, Leppäsuonkatu 11

Lukupiirissä pureudutaan tutkija ja anarkisti Nick Heathin historiikkiin The Idea: Anarchist Communism: Past, Present and Future.

Lukupiiri on kaikille avoin, ja kokoontumisten keskiössä on avoin keskustelu. Osallistuminen ei edellytä tekstien lukemista etukäteen, mutta materiaaliin tutustuminen ennakkoon tekee ajatusten vaihdosta antoisampaa. Halutessamme voimme lukea katkelmia tekstistä myös yhdessä. Jokainen voi osallistua itselleen luontevalla tavalla, sekä aktiivisesti keskustellen että kuunnellen. Tapaamisten ensisijainen kieli on suomi ja lukumateriaalit ovat englanniksi.

Ensimmäisessä tapaamisessa keskitymme näihin lukuihin:
• Foreword s. 17-22
• 4 Marx and Engels and the Communist Movement s. 63-76
• 5 Bakunin and the First International s. 77-82

Voit ilmoittautua ja pyytää lukumateriaalit sähköpostitse: nella@nellaaarne.art
Kirjan voi halutessaan myös ostaa @mustankaninkolo sta!

Sisään Ulrikaan pääsee painamalla summeria “Ulrika” ja odottamalla ovenavaajan saapumista. Tila on esteetön ja sinne pääsee myös pyörätuolilla. by @nellaaarne

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a year ago

This summer it dawned on me that reading anything too religiously risks turning something that was meant to be a site of emancipation from the Law into something Holy. by @nellaaarne

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a year ago

Kropotkin-lukupiiri jatkuu 23.7. samalla kuviolla, kuin aiemmilla kerroilla! Vaikka itse sanonkin, niin viimeks oltiin kyllä taatusti Hietsun kuumin rantajengi. Jos haluat vielä mukaan, laita viesti (DM tai oheiseen sähköpostiin), ja multa saa tarvittaessa linkin lukumatskuihin. by @nellaaarne

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a year ago

My love for birds balances out my hate for the government. It’s much needed at the moment, so I am grateful for the spring migration.

I used to have RSPB membership in the UK but only just (finally) joined my new local birders’ association Tringa. Yesterday, I received my welcome package with bird-related magazines, membership leaflets and a beginner’s guide to birding. The birding guide was so delightfully written that I couldn’t read it without welling up. I was thinking of how much I would’ve loved it as a kid — this prospect of being able to see in real life all those birds that I had studied in a little paperback and tried to paint in watercolours.
Last weekend, we were birding (mostly) in the rain around Naantali and Mynämäki. The water rail persistently refused to make an appearance but so many other beautiful little dudes were seen.

Birds spotted:
Harakka / Magpie
Varis / Hooded crow
Naakka / Jackdaw
Varpunen / House sparrow
Pikkuvarpunen / Tree sparrow
Talitiainen / Great tit
Sinitiainen / Blue tit
Naurulokki / Black-headed gull
Valkoposkihanhi / Barnacle goose
Mustarastas / Blackbird
Västäräkki / White wagtail
Peippo / Chaffinch
Pajusirkku / Reed bunting
Kurki / Common crane
Fasaani / Common pheasant
Valkoviklo / Greenshank
Punajalkaviklo / Redshank
Suokukko / Ruff
Taivaanvuohi / Common snipe
Lapasorsa / Shoveler
Sepelkyyhky / Wood pigeon
Töyhtöhyyppä / Lapwing
Tukkasotka / Tufted duck
Isokoskelo / Goosander
Tukkakoskelo / Red-breasted merganser
Merikotka / White-tailed eagle
Keltasirkku / Yellowhammer
Meriharakka / Oystercatcher
Merilokki / Great black-backed gull
Räyskä / Caspian tern
Telkkä / Common goldeneye
Viherpeippo / Greenfinch
Punarinta / Robin
Kiuru / Skylark
Kyhmyjoutsen / Mute swan
Laulujoutsen / Whooper swan
Metsähanhi / Bean goose
Merimetso / Great cormorant
Käpytikka / Great spotted woodpecker
Nokikana / Coot
Mustakurkku-uikku / Slavonian grebe
Liejukana / Moorhen
Tavi / Eurasian teal
Sinisorsa / Mallard
Kesykyyhky / Feral pigeon
Hippiäinen / Goldcrest

Birds heard:
Peukaloinen / Eurasian wren
Tiltaltti / Common chiffchaff
Laulurastas / Song thrush
Luhtakana / Water rail by @nellaaarne

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a year ago

Top 3 of 2024:

Life highlights
1. Getting married
2. Getting to know more people in Helsinki despite the fact that I’m very awkward and shy
3. Every birding excursion and all those little moments of feeling free to do whatever I want

Bird sightings
1. Bearded reedlings
2. Little stints, Temminck’s stints and curlew sandpipers (all at once!)
3. Eagle owls

Films that best responded to a need
1. Unrest
2. The Zone of Interest
3. Bloodsuckers

Tracks on repeat
1. Kuopus, Suku, suru jne.
2. Weyes Blood, It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody
3. Kendrick Lamar, Crown

Art
1. Florentina Holzinger, Tanz
2. Teo Ala-Ruona, Parachorale
3. Archie Moore: kith and kin

Best moments of joyful decadence were facilitated by
1. Bona Fide
2. Ateljé Finne
3. Osteria Anice Stellato
+ Harju8

Achievements
1. 25 new bird species on my life list
2. Getting through over 30 appointments with various healthcare services
3. Growing my professional confidence

Best decisions
1. Getting a Christmas tree
2. Getting a Christmas tree
3. Getting a Christmas tree by @nellaaarne

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2 years ago