Portrait of a River
Portrait of a River: Thomas Clayton Miller’s artist residency in the Koitajoki Watershed, Finland.
Thomas Miller
Thomas Miller is an artist, musician, filmmaker, and writer. Through his production company Pretty Good Productions, he has directed the feature documentary films Puruvesi (2017) and Jukajoki (2016), the three-part climate change series Our Place on Earth (2017), more than twenty short films, including For All of We (2015), In-Between (2017), and mystery/comedy mini-series, Honest Abe: The Backstory (2019). Miller leads a community-led storytelling project with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and has taught classes around the world on filmmaking theory and technique.
About the Residency
The Koitajoki Watershed in eastern Finland is a place of deep ecological and cultural importance. Its boreal forests, rivers, and peatlands are home to golden eagles, landlocked salmon, and whitefish. It also holds cultural meaning as the birthplace of the Kalevala oral tradition.
In 2024, American artist Thomas Clayton Miller spent time in Koitajoki, working across film, photography, and drawing to explore the connections between people and place. His work documents restoration through the eyes of those who live in and care for the landscape.
Staying in a remote 1920s log cabin near an old-growth forest, Miller lived without internet or distractions. The quiet gave him time to slow down, listen to the land, and begin translating what he heard into images and sound.
A Shift in Practice
“I rarely draw nature. When I travel, I photograph buildings and streets, then turn them into pen-and-ink drawings. But Kaisu from Snowchange challenged me to adapt my style to Koitajoki, to draw the trees, the water, the animals.”
Taking on that challenge, Miller produced a new body of work: drawings of island-covered rivers, wetlands and ravens, all in crisp black ink. Some were inspired by aerial photographs taken by Finnish nature photographer Mika Honkalinna, whose images helped reveal the watershed’s scale and texture.
The People of the Watershed
Using his Hasselblad film camera, Miller captured portraits of the people restoring the watershed. These included Reino, an elder fisher passing on traditional net-making and seining to younger community members; River Guardians, who monitor water quality, record oral histories, and spend time in the landscape; and restoration workers operating heavy machinery to reintroduce stream structure and rewet drained mires.
These portraits form part of a visual map of Koitajoki, connecting place with the people who care for it.
“There are enough ditches in Finland to reach the moon and back. And they’re filling them in, metre by metre, stream by stream.”
Thomas Miller
Seining for a Song
Miller’s short film Seining for a Song was screened at the 2024 Festival of Northern Fishing Traditions. It follows a group of young fishers who are reviving the traditional practice of river seining, guided by elders like Reino.
The film also reflects on Karelia’s poetic traditions and the role of community-led restoration, offering a personal view into how culture and ecology are being rebuilt side by side.
Visit the project page to learn more about the Koitajoki Watershed.
Songs of the Watershed: Katja Malinen on music, memory and restoration
Recording the voices of a changing landscape
Artist residency open call: Cumbria Connect
