The River Assemblies

with architect Seela Pentikäinen and landscape architect Ella Prokkola

part of EASA Commons 2023, Sheffield UK
teaching at the Estonian Art Academy, Tallinn, Estonia

The River Assembies is a project launched in 2022 by Seela Pentikäinen, Siiri Hänninen, and Ella Prokkola that delves into the non-human world, recognizing vital resources such as air, clean water, and healthy soil as products of non-human processes. The project aims to explore ways to recognize and pay more attention to the beings responsible for producing these shared resources that are essential to our well-being.

The project includes a series of workshops and research around the assembly tool. The first workshop was held at EASA Commons (The European Architecture Students’ Assembly) in the summer of 2023. In the summer of 2024, the workshop was organized as an elective course at the Estonian Art Academy. During 2024-2025, the theoretical framework and methodology of the workshop will be developed. During the fall 2025 the project is developed in residency at ZK/U Berlin. In Berlin, the workshop focuses on the urban river Panke. During the residency the materials from three different post-industrial rivers (Sheaf Sheffield, Mustjögi Tallinn, Panke Berlin) will be gathered to an exhibition. The project encourages designers to integrate non-human perspectives into their thinking and brings knowledge about river rights through participatory river walks and rituals organised around the river.

2022–2025

www.riverassemblies.com