Silence as a Strategic Tool
This summer, I spent several days in silence. However, it is not about vacationing at a cottage, but about participating in the Story Villa artist residency, which opened in 2023, in the village of Heinävaara in North Karelia. The residence house, which is valuable in terms of cultural history, has a long history: the two-story log building built in 1908 along the village road has served over the years as a folk and village school, among other things. After the village school ceased to operate, the place served as a home and studio for artist Arja Valkonen Goldblatt for over 20 years. Story Villa offered me a moment to stop, spend time in silence, and think about the future without the constant noise of the environment.
Active Silence as a Tool for Change
The goal of the residency week was to reflect on future projects and, among other things, the contents of my eco-resonance practice, but the hot summer and silence made me reflect on silence itself. There is nothing new in becoming silent in itself. Throughout time, people have sought silence. Various silent retreats are also gaining popularity at regular intervals - not to mention the numerous spiritual exercises, methods, and rituals, or just the Finnish feeling of enjoying the silence in the forest at a cottage.
For me, however, the real aha-experience was that silence can also be an essential tool in innovation in companies. How many people think over a blank piece of paper in a workshop, where they will tear the ideas onto this paper next? Then the facilitator's clock starts ticking - often, however, the exercise in which you somehow tune in to such a frequency that you can process the introductions to the topic you heard earlier, and the mind is ready to come up with ideas, is missing. I have created vocal meditation exercises for many workshops, which help you tune in to the frequency of thinking, and now I have added an active silence exercise to my practice to support innovation. I hope to test the exercises in practice in workshops in the fall!
Silence is a Space to Listen to the Essential.
Active silence in the residency dampened the excessive city noise, and ideas began to flood my mind, new projects, thoughts, characters, stories. The old school building at night breathed an exceptional summer heat in its embrace, and a random breeze found its place in the window frames and cracks. In the surrounding meadows, the fluffy creatures were busy carrying out their tasks, ignoring us humans.
Of course, we did other things in the residency. There, I met, among others, the Ukrainian poet Viktoriia Olishchuk, with whom we made and filmed two performances. First, I accompanied her poems and recitation in Heinävaara, and then we held a short concert for guests in Helsinki. You can find video recordings of both of them on my Instagram and Facebook pages.
Silence is not emptiness – it is a space to listen to the essential. Silence is not absence, but presence. It is a landscape without noise, a space without rush, a thought without noise.
Silence as a tool can:
Make space for better decisions - by stopping and giving space to the decision-making.
Fuel radical creativity - by providing space for the expansion of thinking
Strengthen presence and connection - I am here and now - we are here and now.
Be part of the brand's sound identity - yes, sometimes we don't need to add to the soundscape, but also leave something out.
How could we better harness the power of silence?