ABOAGORA Retreat VIII: Repairing for Peace 

7–9 September 2025

Seili/Själö, Turku Archipelago, Finland 

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

The ABOAGORA Retreat VIII: Repairing for Peace invites MA Arts Students and Doctoral Researchers in the arts, humanities, and sciences to imagine peace at the time of accelerating militarisation. What kind of peace is promised by the securitisation of all aspects of everyday life? How to repair relations needed for peace as something other than a transactional, compromised or predetermined contract? 

The current time of escalating conflicts over resources and reorganisation of the global axes of power urgently calls for solidarities between situated struggles. We are witnessing a steep reversal of the progress achieved in recent decades on both social justice and ecological protections. Militarisation as a deterrent against war is already a state of exception, a looming disaster for the environment and for democracy. It can only be countered by intersectional alliances between resistance movements that are now largely dispersed across generational, identitarian, cultural, and geographical divides.

The ABOAGORA Retreat 2025 searches for imaginaries of peace that address the interconnections between societal and ecological breakdown across local and global scales. The Retreat sets out to bring together research from different fields that critically and creatively examine militarisation and securitisation, historical and today’s peace movements, narratives of resistance to the languages and logics of war, collective practices that actively repair the ground for peace, or other related topics.

The Retreat takes place September 7–9 on the island of Seili in the Turku archipelago. It offers a momentary pause in habitual patterns and processes of practice and space to share, listen, and reflect attentively together. Retreat is directed by curator and researcher Taru Elfving (CAA Contemporary Art Archipelago). The program will be structured around talks, walks, and workshops focused on dialogue and sharing research questions and methods between the participants. The island of Seili, with its multifaceted history and ecology, will inform the activities. 

The retreat is free of charge, and it includes and covers:

• Transport between Turku city centre and Seili (traveling to Turku is at own cost)
• Lodging in Seili on September 7–9 
• Coffee, snacks and lunches during the retreat and ABOAGORA: Venus, the Bringer of Peace 
• Free admission to ABOAGORA: Venus, the Bringer of Peace (September 10–12)
• accommodation in Turku during Venus, the Bringer of Peace event (September 9–12)

The retreat participants will discuss their work in a joint panel session on September 11 at the ABOAGORA: Venus, the Bringer of Peace event at the Sibelius Museum in Turku. 

Please see the details from the attached open call and apply by April 30th via this Webropol form. Notification of acceptance will be given by the end of May.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at aboagora@utu.fi !

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Liisa Lalu (she/her)

Coordinator/Project Researcher
ABOAGORA – Between Arts and Sciences
aboagora@utu.fi

+358 50 570 4017
www.aboagora.fi
 

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