Art Ii – Biennale of northern environmental and sculpture art

In 2010 I was invited to Biennale of northern environmental and sculpture art in Ii in northern Finland. I made an outside public installation lasting for several years called How to enjoy nature. In a post-box mounted on the piece were handouts with a step by step instruction found on Wikihow describing how to enjoy nature. In order to do that you also have to free the space of unwanted natural elements such as mosquitos, so I also made simple mosquito traps following an online DIY-instruction. To me it was about an urban culture clashing with and romantisizing nature and also about recognizing and caring for the not so beautiful elements of nature, bad weather, mosquitos, weeds etc. We can’t tame nature into something it isn’t, we have to appreciate it as it is. The piece also contained two humbrol paintings on wood. One picturing a beautiful sunset and the other the stars and constellations above Ii in the opening night. Ironically this was in mid summer and in northern Finland it never gets dark in summertime so you almost never see the stars.