The Learned Pig

Art – Thinking – Nature – Writing

Tag: Finland

  • Making maps in the backwoods

    Making maps in the backwoods

    Melanie Viets speaks to influential artist Jussi Kivi about mapping hidden histories in the landscapes around (and under) Helsinki and beyond.

  • almost like almost

    almost like almost

      almost like almost . . . . . . . he said in land there is a line around a wolf within is other and awe social grace packed who wills foul and unrest . . . . . . . when the chaste self ills the line extends skin to no where inside…

  • She-Wolf, Kauttua 1963

    She-Wolf, Kauttua 1963

    For three nights the she-wolf skirted the village. Must be desperate, to leave the forest, her cubs must be starving. The men oiled their guns, waxed their skis, took their time, an easy target this one, no hurry. When she howled, her ahh oww, oww, owwww sliced through the still air, sliced right through the…

  • Editorial: Wolf Crossing

    Editorial: Wolf Crossing

    Look into the eyes of the wolf. What does it see? On 29th August 2016, shortly after the announcement of Steve Bannon’s appointment as Donald Trump’s new campaign CEO, The New Yorker ran a cartoon by Paul Noth. It shows a large billboard standing in a field of grazing sheep. Upon it is a wolf…

  • Open Call: Wolf Crossing

    Open Call: Wolf Crossing

    In Finland there is a line around the city: susiraja, the wolf border. Within is law and order: shopping malls and social security. Beyond the susiraja lie the wilds and the wolves – just 200 at the last count. Who will howl in the forests when the last wolf departs? The susiraja may be inviolable…

  • Kaiku

    Kaiku

    Kaiku peeked through the kitchen window. The scene was empty – the Shaman was out. Kaiku went to the kitchen cupboard. Behind the pots and pans her fingers found a key. With great care she opened the door. The action made her shiver with excitement. The heavy door opened slowly. The room bathed in sunlight….

  • Revisiting Unknown Places

    Revisiting Unknown Places

    The art of Maria Pääkkönen concerns itself with a reciprocal relationship between drawing and place. On the one hand is the drawing of the place – that which is observed, recorded, remembered, evoked. On the other is the place of the drawing – its physical presence within the confines of the gallery. Somewhere in between…

  • A View from the Other Side

    A View from the Other Side

    Spot-lit in the cavernous darkness, a model of a city. A model city: monotone, empty, pure, with the pristine edges of laser-cut steel glinting under light. It sits in the centre of an oil-black moat. The whole is perched waist-high on a slowly rotating table. Like many architectural models, the piece feels both large and…

  • Oikeusjuttu (The Trial)

    Oikeusjuttu (The Trial)

    In Finland, the wolf is both more and less than an animal; it is a symbol. And this November sees a court case in which the very nature of that symbolism will be on trial. Fifteen men have been accused of the 2013 killing of three wolves (three of a population of around 150) in…