Čuoikkariššu / Mosquito Shower explores the tension between discomfort and coexistence through the itchy sound of mosquitoes, tiny beings with an outsized ecological role in Arctic ecosystems. It invites audiences to rethink mosquitoes and their sounds not as nuisances, but as vital participants in a dense web of relations linking humans, multispecies communities and environmental change.

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Changes in sonic environments often accompany — and sometimes even precede — changes in the landscape. In fragile Arctic ecologies, even the smallest shifts matter. Mosquitoes play essential roles: they support food webs, influence animal movement, and contribute to the balance of tundra life.

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Today, the Arctic is warming rapidly. Mosquitoes are appearing earlier in the year, their life cycles are changing, and new species are moving north. While scientists are still learning how these transformations will affect ecosystems and biodiversity, Indigenous ecological knowledge offers insights grounded in long-term coexistence and close attention even to microscopic entanglements.

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In the European Arctic, the Sámi have come to live with mosquitoes as part of a broader network of care across all Earth beings. Attending closely to their presence also means attending to their sound, and the stinging discomfort we commonly associate to these insect’s buzzing for some Sámi may be heard as a beautiful joik melody.

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Mai Britt Utsi (Uhca Pier Esthera Máijá) is a Sámi researcher and juoigi based in Guovdageaidnu (Kautokeino). A PhD candidate at the Sámi University of Applied Sciences, she works with Sámi storytelling and joik traditions in the Varanger region, and has helped shape Sámi higher education since the 1990s as teacher-education leader, rector (2003–2007) and dean (2012–2016).

 

Nicola Renzi is an Italian-Sardinian sound artist, field recordist and ecologist of sound. As a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki's MultiBEING Centre of Excellence, he studies mosquito sounds and their eco-aesthetic significance in Indigenous oral traditions of the circumpolar North, using collaborative sound art and immersive field recording as core methods.

 

Together, Nicola and Máijá create sound installations, podcasts, listening workshops and scientific publications that foreground Sámi joik and environmental sounds as preferred mediums. Their installation Čuoikkariššu / Mosquito Shower was developed in March 2026 with support from the Arctic Art Institute and has since been presented, by invitation or official selection, at festivals in Oslo, London, Bologna and Helsinki. You can read more about their work on their website.

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PARABOL is the name we use for the sound shower located at Kunsthall 3,14’s entrance hall. The sonic works presented here are curated by Lydgalleriet on invitation from Kunsthall 3,14, with the intention of reflecting the always relevant exhibition themes presented upstairs.

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Since summer 2025, PARABOL has been curated by Peter Meanwell at Lydgalleriet.