Our global campfire has an urgent need for storytellers. As a community artist, I create tools to help the community better understand its past, present and future. As oil resources are running dry, on the crest of a wave, we have this short moment to rethink humanity.
The Human Story is a video installation where experts from different fields tell their own versions of the story of the human race. How is the story seen from the perspective of evolutionary biology, theology or astronomy? How were humans born? Is there a purpose to human existence? What will happen to humans in the future?
I interviewed each expert around a fire in an Iron Age hut on a dark winter evening. I edited the interviews into a polyphonic story where different worldviews live side by side.
Producer, director, interviewer, screenwriter, film editor: Henna Laininen
Storytellers:
Ilkka Hanski, ecologist
Kaisa Kariranta, theologian
Dalva Lamminmäki, folklorist
Tuulikki Pietilä, anthropologist
Antti Salminen, philosopher
Seita Vuorela, writer
Miikka Väisälä, astronomer
Hamed Shafae, master of social sciences, member of the delegation of Finland’s National Human Rights Institution
Director of photography: Turkka Tervonen
Gaffer: Aarni Vaarnamo, Vesa Rajala
Sound recorder: Vesa Rajala, Kalle Kuisma
Production assistant, still-photographer, catering: Mikael Kinanen
Color grader, installing: Henna Laininen
Color grading assistant: Turkka Tervonen
Sound designer, video mapper, technical realisation of installation: Eero Nieminen