The Garden And The Hedge | Piha, Pyhä, Metsä, Maa
The Finnish word metsä, forest, has long meant ‘border, edge or verge’ - the area outside the boundaries of home, an area that does not belong to man. The word pyhä, sacred, on the other hand, has been used to define a special place in nature, a time, or a being. Both sacred and forest have been associated with respect and an acceptance, that there are areas, which can never be fully experienced, controlled or understood by humans. The significance of the words defined boundaries, which needed permission to be crossed, urging caution and thus preventing people from acting unreasonably. Nature’s gifts could not just be taken, they had to be asked for.
In the nature-worshipping Finnish folk tradition, certain trees have been considered sacred. According to mythical thinking, the world is ruled by invisible forces, and it has been necessary to secure their favour for all activities. In this interaction, it has been necessary to give to receive something. The primary function of both art and ritual has been to create a link between the invisible sacred and the material world.
The excess as normal has led to a crisis for humanity. Boundaries have been broken. The global average temperature has risen by 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, the carrying capacity of the biosphere is under threat, the limits of sustainable harvesting of our forests have been exceeded, and our forests have been transformed from carbon sinks to carbon emitters. We have tended to rely on ourselves alone, on technology and economic growth, rather than on the land and functioning ecosystems.
Today’s scientific worldview could bring us back to the forest and the sacred. Instead of removing the miraculous of life’s diversity, science has created an increasingly precise and at the same time miraculous picture of an infinitely complex web of life. And in the face of this, the receptive human being cannot but fall silent in awe.
Through artworks placed in trees and forests, KUBU’s summer exhibition explores the boundaries that separate the dead from the living, the present from the past, the invisible forces that govern life from the visible reality of everyday life, and culture from nature. At the border, it is possible to find a context, to remember and to relate. Each work in the exhibition is a meeting place that maintains a memory of trees and forests as something more than what can be immediately sensed. This imperceptible may be animistic in its nature or established by scientific research.
Participating artists: Eija Isojärvi, Anni Rapinoja and Anna Vasko. Community artworks produced by local participants in May 24th and 29th workshops. The exhibition is part of the 700-year anniversary of Kimitoön.
Visual artist Eija Isojärvi
Vanhan kuusen oksien suojassa on keramiikasta ja pellavakuitupaperimassasta tehtyjä pesiä. Pesä on paikka elämän alulle; soluille, niiden kasvulle, turvalle, hoivalle. Aukosta näkyy ulkomaailma, se on yhteys lajempaan ympäristöön. Pesän voi havaita ympäristöstä poikkeavana tai se voi mukautua paikkaansa väriltään. Teoksen pesiin voi kurkistaa sisään. Toiset ovat tyhjiä, mutta toiset kätkevät jotain sisäänsä.
Artist: Metsä, Assistant: visual artist Anni Rapinoja
Anni Rapinoja tarkentaa teoksillaan katseen metsän muotoihin, joihin ei yleensä tule kiinnittäneeksi huomiota. “Kuljin jo kauan sitten –ja kuljen edelleen– metsissä, rannoilla ja pellon pientareilla pieni diakehys mukanani ja katselen yhdellä silmällä sen läpi, rajaten näkymiä sekä lähelle että kauas. Aloin myös kuvaamaan näitä näkymiä ja myöhemmin syntyi ajatus jakaa muillekin näitä havaintoja elävistä maalauksista, joissa taiteilijana on itse metsä ja minä toimin lähinnä assistenttina.”
Color designer and textile artist Anna Vasko
“The forest offers shades, depth and wonder. As a collector, I explore its offerings and create colors and shades, surfaces and structures. I experience being covered by the forest as surrendering to its forces, being carried away by the current, letting the forest speak through me. Barks, roots, leaves, lichens, pine cones, acorns… all of these the forest offers as material for me to study in the laboratory.”
Pine. Beaded jute rope, stone circle and ragwort around Kubu’s sacred elf tree.
The Kubu elf tree was named Juustopuu, which, as one of the countless names given to sacrificial trees in the past, refers to the gifts given to the tree. In the past, every house had an elf tree, which protected the people in the house and served as a connection to deceased relatives and nature spirits. The tree was divine, untouched and respected. There was a connection of fate between man and tree. What happened to the tree happened to the man.
At the base of the tree, a grass of ragwort has been planted, which is essential for the larvae of at least eight species of butterflies. It is also home to the critically endangered dune feather.
Spruce. Felt and lake reeds surround the tree.
The well-known proverb “it is the tree that is heard, under whose feet one dwells” first appeared in the pages of Kantelettare in 1824, but already in 1702, a variation appears in the proverb book of Henricus Florinius, who was a priest in Kemiö: “It is the tree that is worshipped, under whose feet one dwells”. (At that time, Hiisi meant a sacred tree or place.) A similar proverb can also be found in the Icelandic saga of Egill (c. 1100-1200), where it is in the form “It is the oak that is respected, under whose feet one dwells”.
According to the notes of the Folklore Archive, when looking for a place to live, a tree that offered a place to sleep under its branches was worth hearing about. If the tree’s spirit did not show dreams, or they were bad, it was not worth staying in the place. If the dreams promised good things, a house could be built. Sometimes the spirit indicated in a dream the place where a sacrificial tree should be planted, sometimes the tree under which one spent the night became the sacred sacrificial tree revered in the house.
Apple tree. Fairy figures made of wood and plant parts.
The word forest originally meant edge, boundary and border. It was an endlessly expanding kingdom on the edge of the home circle, with its own laws and powers that were not subject to human will. The forest did not belong to humans, but its products were nevertheless a lifeline. Permission was required to cross the border and respect had to be shown in a foreign kingdom. People communicated with the forest through the elves and ensured that the forest was not violated.
Of all the divine beings, the forest elves were considered by our ancestors to be the most merciful. – Julius Krohn 1869
Pine. Skulls decorated with stamped metal, stain, beads and wasp nest wood fiber.
Some animals have had a special place in Finnish mythology. The bear is said to have been born in heaven and to be the totemic ancestor of man. In the rituals following the hunt, the skull was taken to a special bear skull pine. The animal’s soul could then continue its journey and return to earth. The soul would also carry messages from humans to the bear’s mother. The Roman historian Tacitus (c. 55-120) wrote about his journey to Fennia, about the oxen people who lived there and considered the bear to be their ancestor, and about the Hellusians for whom the moose was a symbolic ancestor. In the artwork Skull Pine deer skulls found in the wild were used.
Pine. Pieces of bark with a cross carved and painted on them.
In the Finnish folklore, there is a tradition of marking trees in connection with an important event. The marking was done by carving or pruning. The carving for the deceased is done during the journey to the burial site. The tree is carved with the initials of the deceased, the date of birth and death or a cross. The people wished the restless soul peace to prevent it from returning home. Later, carving became a custom to honour the memory of the deceased. The oldest known carving dates from the 18th century. Cross trees are still found in eastern and south-eastern Estonia.
The forest. There are protect/save ribbons in the trees and in the forest there is a wooden frame of the work Hiisiteltta (The Tent), made for the People of Trees exhibition by Ritva Kovalainen and Sanni Seppo in 1997.
Hiisi were sacred places shared by villages in the past, where people gathered to keep in touch with the spirits of nature and the dead. Not even a branch was allowed to be broken in a hiisi. In many cultures, ribbons tied to trees act as prayers of wishes, gratitude and respect. If you wish, you can tie your own ribbon to the hiisi “world post”. In forestry, the appearance of ribbons in the forest signals the start of logging and the ribbons are used to communicate the boundaries of logging areas, machine tracks, storage areas and trees to be preserved.
Modern Finnish dictionary: hiisi 1. originally a sacred grove, sacrificial grove, cemetery in pagan times. 2. later a bad place, hell, hell.
Birch. Children’s dresses and shirts on the branches.
The birch tree has become a symbol of home and roots in Finland largely thanks to Zacharias Topelius’s fairy tale The Birch and the Star (1865). In the fairy tale, children kidnapped from Finland to Russia escape back to their home after a decade, where a familiar birch tree and an evening star shining through the leaves await them in the yard. The fairy tale is inspired by the robbery of Topelius’ grandfather Kristoffer Topelius to Russia during the Great War and his successful escape back home. The fairy tale is reminiscent of events in Ukraine today. Up to 20,000 children were kidnapped from Ukraine to Russia during the last two years of the war.
The birch tree itself became a target of hatred in Finnish forestry because it was not seen as a use in industry. In the past decades, birch was called the “white lie of the forests”. Birches were razed to the ground with heavy machinery or were cut down, felled and left standing as late as the 1960s.
Goat willow. Colored cherry and cranberry stones in the hollows of the tree.
The forest offers organisms a variety of habitats, some microscopic and others vast. Species have found each of them and adapted to the conditions available. Different tree species are known to act as habitats for hundreds of different species, thus influencing the ecosystem in countless ways at different stages of their life.
Details that often seem insignificant to humans can provide essential living conditions for some species. The work Eco-Cavities reminds us of these small details.
Oak. Jouko Ollikainen’s paintings of early naturalists and conservationists
From bottom to top: Carl von Linné (1707-1778), professor of botany, father of modern ecology, developed the foundations of taxonomy. | Pehr Kalm (1716–1779) priest, explorer, naturalist, father of Finnish horticulture. | Carl Reinhold Sahlberg (1779–1860) professor of natural sciences, expanded the university’s insect and plant collections, founded Finland’s first scientific society. | Carl Gustaf Mannerheim, (1797–1854) administrator, count and entomologist, described numerous beetle species new to science. | Zachris Topelius (1818-1898) founded the first Finnish environmental organization, the Spring Company, to protect, among other things, small birds. | A.E. Nordenskiöld (1832–1901), explorer, whose proposal for state parks initiated the establishment of nature reserves in the Nordic countries. | Axel Palmén (1845-1919), professor of zoology, pioneer of ornithology, founded the Tvärminne Zoological Station, initiated bird ringing.
A scientific revolution began in the 1740s in the Swedish Empire and its eastern part in Finland, as a result of which naturalists began to explore the world around us. The Memorial Tree honors early naturalists and conservationists.
Pine. A bench made of recycled wood with commemorative plaques around the tree.
The letter combination RE is a category used in the assessment of endangered species, regionally extinct. There are now 312 species in Finland in this category. Remembering RE with longing is a memorial to six species that have become extinct in Finland. The great horned owl, the grebe, the alder leaf warbler and the mourning dove were found to be extinct in the first assessment published in 2000, the oak warbler in 2010 and the golden tit in 2019. Both were previously listed in the critically endangered category. The risk of a species belonging to this EN category (endangered) disappearing from the wild in the near future is very high. In the latest assessment, 4.1 percent of the assessed species were classified as critically endangered, including our familiar birds the house sparrow, barn swallow, barn swallow and common tit. The year on the plaque indicates the latest observations, before the RE classification.
A Pine. A decoration made of felt wire around the tree.
In the forest, trees are in symbiosis with mycorrhizal fungi, and the flow between them carries water and nutrients to the trees and sugar to the fungi. In the mycorrhizal network, trees also send each other warnings when pests attack. Certain of the oldest and largest trees in the forest have been found to play a particularly important role in the “wood wide web” of the entire forest community. Mother trees have more connections than other trees, they infect the seedlings with vital fungi and they supply them with the nutrients they need for growth.
Small Forest. Hidden details in different parts of the forest.
Each natural forest is home to thousands of species, which are interconnected in unprecedented interdependencies. The entire forest ecosystem has come to be seen as a kind of superorganism, in which the parts of a complex network influence, benefit and are dependent on each other. The realization of the food cycle requires the cooperation of several species, in which matter circulates between organisms, through various chains and endlessly feeding each other’s lives. The evolution of each species takes place together with other species. The most central characteristics of life are interaction, interdependence and the circulation of everything.
Two exhibitions:
5.6.–31.8.2025 The Garden And the Hedge Piha, Pyhä, Metsä, Maa
Opening hours:
Tue-Sun 11-17 (Sat: 11-15) Mon closed / by appointment
info@kubu.fi
Entrance fee:
10€ (7€ students/seniors, children free) The ticket entitles you to
both exhibitions throughout the summer
Accessibility:
The first floor of Kubu, where almost all the works are located, is
accessible.
Some of the environmental art works are in an easily accessible
forest.
About Kubu:
Kubu is an artist-run, independent space dedicated to
transdisciplinary artistic practice, environmental sustainability,
and community engagement. Located on the island of Kimitoön,
Finland, Kubu operates as a living, evolving project aimed at
addressing pressing ecological and social issues through the lens of
art and design, social science and humanities, science, and
education.
Address:
Kulturhus Björkboda
Smedskullavägen 3
25860 Björkboda
Finland
Plan your visit here
Low-energy website experiment This microsite is an low-energy experiment inspired by many other similar projects. The images are reduced to very small files sizes and the website is a static and local, meaning it does not require power-consuming servers or cloud computing, instead, it will be running in a small Raspberry pi in KUBU, and could be fully solar powered. As we are still running the main kubu.fi website hosted conventionally and use social media as before, the intention is not to produce any significant energy savings yet. But it is a learning excercise for us and hopefully inspiration for others in trying out low-energy methods in computing and communications.
Support:
Kimitoön 700-year anniversary fund (Föreningen Konstsamfundet &
Kimitoön municipality) & Svenska Kulturfonden
Partner Norpas festival
Team:
Ritva Kovalainen, curator, Piha, Pyhä, Metsä, Maa -exhibition
Eija Isojärvi & Ritva Kovalainen, design & direction of
community artworks
Tuomo Tammenpää, executive producer, Kulturhus Björkboda
Sari Kippilä, producer, Kulturhus Björkboda
More info:
Sari Kippilä
+358 41 806 4766
sari@kubu.fi