Songs of the Watershed
Katja Malinen: music, memory and restoration in the Koitajoki Watershed
Katja Malinen
Katja Malinen is a musician, kantele player and cultural guide based in Ilomantsi, Finland. Her work explores Karelian cultural heritage, traditional music and oral storytelling traditions, with a particular focus on the relationship between people, place and memory.
About the Residency
In the forests, rivers and peatlands of eastern Finland, the ELSP-funded Koitajoki Watershed project is restoring ecologically significant landscapes while helping to renew cultural connections to place. The region is also one of the heartlands of Karelian culture and rune singing, the oral tradition that inspired Finland’s national epic, the Kalevala.
As the third ELSP Artist in Residence with Snowchange Cooperative, musician and cultural guide Katja Malinen explored the relationship between landscape restoration, cultural memory and music. Drawing on historical rune-song archives from the village of Ryökkylä and working with a recently restored kantele discovered within the project area, she created new compositions that connect contemporary audiences with generations of stories, songs and traditions rooted in the Koitajoki watershed.
Music, memory and place
Rune singing (runolaulu) is among the oldest forms of oral poetry in northern Europe. For centuries, songs, stories, myths, healing traditions and knowledge about the natural world were passed from generation to generation through memory and performance.
Many of these songs reflected a worldview grounded in reciprocity between people and nature. Forests, waters and wildlife were treated with respect, gratitude and awareness. During her residency, Katja explored how these historical traditions might help modern audiences reconsider their relationship with the natural world.
Through time spent in remote cabins without electricity, listening to birdsong, collecting local stories and composing within the landscape itself, she found inspiration in the silence and rhythms of the watershed.
“From a place of silence, without the disturbances of modern life, it becomes easier to feel a sense of unity with everything around you.” – Katja Malinen
The voice of an old kantele
The restored kantele became a central character within the residency. Made from old pine, the instrument possesses a distinctive resonance that differs markedly from modern concert kanteles.
Research revealed that the instrument belonged to Sandra Auvinen, who lived in Ryökkylä during the twentieth century. Local residents remembered her as a kantele player and healer, and these stories helped shape Katja’s understanding of the instrument’s cultural significance.
During the residency, Katja returned the restored kantele to Sandra’s former home, performing music there as a gesture of respect and continuity.
“I wanted her to know it would continue the tradition and keep her memory, and the memory of Ryökkylä, alive.” – Katja Malinen
Connecting cultural and ecological restoration
For Katja, the residency highlighted the strong relationship between environmental restoration and cultural preservation.
Many rune songs emerged from landscapes that were once rich in biodiversity and closely connected to local livelihoods. As forests were logged, wetlands drained and waterways altered, these ecological changes also affected cultural practices and community relationships with place.
The restoration work taking place across the Koitajoki watershed offers an opportunity not only to recover habitats and ecosystems, but also to strengthen connections with traditional knowledge, stories and ways of understanding the landscape.
“Our cultural heritage is deeply tied to nature and place. The environment inspired the music, just as the music expressed the environment.”
Katja Malinen
Sharing the work
Throughout the residency, Katja shared her research and compositions through conversations and performances at Parppeinvaara Rune Singer’s Village in Ilomantsi, where she works as a cultural guide and musician.
Visitors from Finland and around the world were introduced to local rune-singing traditions and the stories behind the songs. Even without understanding the words, audiences often responded emotionally to the music, demonstrating the enduring power of traditional sound and storytelling.
By reviving songs connected to Ryökkylä and performing them using Sandra Auvinen’s restored kantele, Katja’s residency created new opportunities for people to engage with the cultural heritage of the watershed while reflecting on the connections between memory, landscape and ecological restoration.
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
