Title: Reflections in Water 2021-2022
Fashion design: Melanie Sarantou
Photography and Video: Satu Miettinen
Performance Mariluz and Caoimhe
Materials: Mixed media
Dimensions: various

In the project Reflections in Water, placemaking, photography, and fashion design each play a powerful role in re-storying intergenerational memory and enabling a ritualistic encounter with ancestral presence, specifically through the motif of meeting the ancestors in the water.

Placemaking was central, not just in setting the geographic stage—from the Kemijoki River to the island of Vänö—but in evoking historical, cultural, and spiritual dimensions of those places. The physical act of performing in these natural environments transformed them into ritual grounds where memory, history, and identity were embodied and expressed. Water became a medium of communication, cleansing, mourning, and honoring lineage, bridging the present with ancestral pasts.

Photography and videography were more than documentation tools—they were instruments of collaborative visual analysis that layered and reinterpreted meaning. Through stills and moving images, ancestral presences were visually manifested—emerging from water, merging with performance—and allowed for a dynamic interplay of temporalities: past, present, and speculative futures. The use of archival photographs of Vänö villagers layered with contemporary visuals intensified this ghostly reappearance of ancestors.

Fashion design, especially the “Water Wasted” costumes, served as both material artifacts and symbolic vessels. Constructed from discarded water containers and waste materials, the garments embodied a critique of environmental consumption while connecting to ancestral dress forms and narratives. The costumes visually and materially expressed histories of colonial migration, domestic labor, and female embodiment. When worn by performers in the water rituals, they bridged contemporary concerns with ancestral memory, allowing the body to become a site of both remembrance and resistance.

Together, these elements enacted a ritualistic, symbolic meeting of the ancestors in the water—where visual storytelling, embodied performance, and eco-political critique converged into a poignant exploration of memory, identity, and environmental stewardship.

Sarantou, M. & Miettinen, S. (2022). Reflections in water: Displaying political agency through costume, performance, and video. Studies in Costume and Performance, Intellect. https://doi.org/10.1386/scp_00063_1