Book I — Sampo
Abundance, provision, possession and participation. The first book opens the cycle with the question of the source: why does a human being try to possess that within which he already lives?
Literary-philosophical cycle / artistic research through fiction
Radiance
Northern Tales of the True History of the World. A long-form cycle in which artistic form becomes a way of research.
We do not retell the Kalevala. We show the world from which such stories could have arisen.
What Radiance is
in brief
Epics, fairy tales and ancient stories of different peoples can be read as different imaginal languages of access to deep knowledge. Each people received its own tools and instructions in a form shaped by its land, language, memory, pain, climate, labour and way of hearing the world.
Radiance / Сияние is a literary-philosophical, practice-based research cycle about how ancient stories preserve imaginal instructions for the world.
The Finno-Karelian and Kalevala material forms the main northern backbone of the cycle. We try to understand what human experience made these images necessary — and whether artistic form can make this knowledge audible and clearly understandable again.
Books of the cycle
current structure
Book II — Song
Word, hearing, language and attunement. The second book continues the method of Sampo through sound and speech: can the word become attunement rather than noise?
BOOK III
Book III — The Forge
The next node of the cycle. Craft, form, responsibility and technology as a question of what a human being does with power when power requires measure.
In preparation
Artistic research frame
for foundations and partners
Radiance does not prove ancient truth as a thesis. It tests whether artistic form can make it audible and clearly understandable again.
Sampo researches the instruction of abundance and participation.
Song researches the instruction of word, hearing and attunement.
Further books unfold instructions of craft, threshold, trauma, return, birth, forest, measure and responsibility.
This is not a retelling of myth and not decorative mythology. It is an attempt, through the novel, scene, object, speech, silence and human choice, to return working force to the ancient image.
Map of instructions
planned nodes of the cycle
- Sampoabundance, provision, possession, participation.
- Songword, hearing, language, attunement.
- The Forgecraft, form, responsibility, technology.
- Thresholdaccess, northern force, maturity.
- Disruptiontrauma, damaged script, false destiny.
- Returndeath, disintegration, passion, return.
- Breathbirth, gestation, creation without violence.
- Forestearth, animal, living mechanism, service.
Who this project is for
readers and partners
Readers
The cycle may speak to readers who need slow mythopoetic prose, a northern atmosphere without fantasy cliché, philosophical depth without a lecture, and an ancient image acting through daily life, body, language and choice.
Partners
The project is open to publishing, translation, editorial, residency and cultural collaboration, including public readings, talks and presentations of artistic research through fiction.
What must not be confused
project boundaries
Radiance is not a retelling of mythology, not a fantasy universe and not a spiritual teaching. It is a literary-philosophical, practice-based research cycle in which ancient images are treated as living forms of knowledge.
The project works with myth not as ornament, but as memory: with what helped a human being understand world, measure, labour, word, fear, responsibility and connection with the living order of reality.
— mark of presence