After graduating as a landscape architect, I have strived to move towards creating temporary installations that carry a combined environmental art and architecture ethos. The creating process helps me to understand the connections between art and architecture, but it also involves a way to express and discern personal emotions and feelings. As a person, I can be characterized as sentient and connected with the landscapes that surround me. And by landscapes I mean not only the physical qualities of a landscape but also things such as memories, emotional states and persons. When one of these parts of the landscape disappears, it slowly deteriorates the entire mental image that I have of the landscape and the process is frustrating. Therefore, I suppose art, like this landscape-like installation Nest 1 here, gives me the way to hold on to these landscapes as long as I can and preserve them before they fade away. Memories can be wonderful and in my opinion one is allowed to dwell in them: they are three-dimensional realities for me in the same sense as our daily routines. However, in the end one has to let memories go and for that purpose I use art. I tear myself away from those moments and images by gathering and organizing them kind of like an archivist but in the form of collages, installations or a series of photographs depending on the situation. These self-made landscapes are a bit more permanent; they do not run away as treacherously and unnotified as the moments in real life. One can pause near them in a planned manner, gather friends around them and they can be stored in both electronic or real boxes and folders. They bring some stability in my everyday life that seems oppressively momentary from time to time.
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In the idea sketch I first had in my mind a green garden-like space that included natural vegetation as well. The more further I went with the project, the more simple the idea got. In the end I decided to make a totally artificial work, a black simplified "garden" that reflected my melancholical emotions behind the idea and also worked as a discreet base for the colorful audience that visited the space (see pictures below).
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The empty garden in the morning light. In the end also the elements used got simplified; the sculptural details represented flowers, birds and trees. I also placed a wooden box to the front side of the garden and asked the visitors to give ideas for the location of the next temporary garden. Picture: Lasse Ehrnrooth
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The unrealistic scale of the elements brought a dream-like feeling into the garden. Sudden changes of light and shadows and the silent darkness of the garden created the atmosphere I was looking for: something between hope and despair, joy and sorrow. Picture: Lasse Ehrnrooth
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The black colour simplified the elements presenting nature. Many visitors commented that they connected the work with Japanese gardens. Those comments made me happy, since my idea was, like it is in Japanese garden art as well, to create a memory image of nature. Picture: Lasse Ehrnrooth
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I connect landscapes with spesific moments and persons in my life. Unfortunately those landscape memories fade away gradually when the people or the actual landscapes change or disappear. I suppose the elements got black colour for that reason: they are somewhat sad attempts to hold on to these image-like landscapes in my head, to bring them to three-dimensional level once again.
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The shadows from the installation elements and people in the space created additional "side spaces" to the garden during the night time. The documenting of this shadow world was much fun and started to feel like an important part of the project. The light temporary feeling in these shadow worlds was inspiring and supported well my idea of temporary fading memory landscapes. Picture: Lasse Ehrnrooth
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The audience listening to Marja`s and Mari`s performance. Picture: Lintustudio - Polly Balitro & Jacopo Chiapparino. Picture: Lintustudio - Polly Balitro & Jacopo Chiapparino. Picture: Lintustudio - Polly Balitro & Jacopo Chiapparino.
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Singer-songwriter Marja Vehkanen and composer Mari Sainio performing. Picture: Picture: Lintustudio - Polly Balitro & Jacopo Chiapparino. Picture: Lintustudio - Polly Balitro & Jacopo Chiapparino.
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Many little details altered the space during the night; the constantly moving and changing audience, the lights made for the performance, the shadows made by people etc. Picture: Lasse Ehrnrooth.
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Picture: Lasse Ehrnrooth. The darkness made the space somehow more cousy and more approachable. When the darkness painted the structures and filled the corners and borders, it really started to feel like a
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| After the exhibition pieces of the installation were reinstallaed to Kivinokka nature area in Helsinki. |
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