MASSIA Sprout

I am going to Estonia to study cultural and artistic plant practice!

Some of the things I will be looking at is communal practice, sauna building and connection with land.

Communal practice: I am looking to develop a communal sauna practice that is rooted in ideas of queerness. I do not know exactly how this will look like, but the people and local ecology would inform my practice, as well as my history and previous learning of Latvian communal practices.

deepening my connection with the local land and ancestors. I will be foraging the blossoms and early blooms to make scrubs to use in the pirts rituals. Learning about bringing lichens into the sauna. I would like to bring the seeds of healing herbs I am connected to from Latvia, and see if they would like to grow at MASSIA. I am very interested in the local landscape and the similarities and differences to my own in Limbaži, Latvia. Although there is now a national border between us, I believe there is a very similar sauna tradition and local ecology.

In the Baltic states and Nordic cultures saunas are an integral part of the culture that promotes spiritual, physical and mental wellbeing, and I am looking to promote and re-integrate a form of Baltic sauna practice in other parts of Europe and UK. This means I am looking to both strengthen the practice in myself, and how to share and communicate the power of it to people who do not have any ideas of these practices.