Tip for the summer: Culture Trail in Mynämäki

The Culture Trail outdoor exhibition of contemporary art is a recreational trail running between Saarenrantatie and Vasikkahaka bird observation tower, designed and maintained collaboratively by Kone Foundation’s Saari Residence for artists and the project Mietoistenlahti – Experiences in Nature for Everyone of the Mynämäki Region Nature Conservation Association.

The artworks of the site-specific Culture Path can be viewed in both daylight and darkness. What can we see and observe in sunshine or by torchlight, and what emerges when darkness falls? In this exhibition, artists working at the Saari Residence – Soohyun Choi, Niko Tii Nurmi Sipiläinen, Anu Raatikainen and Meriem Wakrim – explore topics such as light and darkness, gaze, birth and death, and the inner and outer landscape.

The works of art, placed by the side of the coastal meadow and along the trail, will be on display until spring 2024.

The Culture Trail’s address is Saarenrantatie 21, 23140 Hietamäki. From the crossroads leading to the manor, walk on for about 50 metres, and the Culture Trail is on the right side of the road.  Alternatively, the Trail is accessible from the parking lot of the birdwatching towers at Saarentie 230, 23140 Hietamäki. Parking spaces are available in the parking area leading to the bird observation tower, located along Saarentie, and next to the Sillankari bird observation tower along Saarenrantatie.

This 500 metres long recreational route is open for everyone. Visitors on the Culture Trail are kindly requested to avoid moving around in the manor area to ensure peace and quiet for everyone working and residing in the Residence.

The Culture Trail exhibition’s artworks

Soohyun Choi
Goodbye, Max
2022

Goodbye, Max follows the journey of making a gravestone for Max, a fictional son from a dream. In the video, the ‘I’ questions the precarious condition of being a mother-artist, the concept of artistic freedom and its possibility within the art system, and gently reveals the situation which allowed the artist to realise the dream: the idea of the work. By juxtaposing the death of an imaginary son with the birth of art, the boundary between fiction and reality blurs. As a work of art, Max manages to find his place in the real world both in the form of video and a gravestone at the Saari Residence, Finland.

Soohyun Choi

Niko Tii Nurmi Sipiläinen
Genesis Clock (90 Seconds to Dawn)
2023

The Doomsday Clock first appeared on the cover of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists magazine in June 1947. Designed by Martyl Langsdorf, the clock has ever since been metaphorically counting down the time to widespread nuclear annihilation, represented by midnight. Most recently, the clock’s hands were moved in January 2023 to their current position: 90 seconds to midnight.

The Genesis Clock is the Doomsday Clock’s counterpart. It counts down the time to dawn, represented by six o’clock.

The glow-in-the-dark paint used in the work contains strontium aluminate mixed with europium and dysprosium. This is a substance commonly used on the hands and clock faces of wristwatches, having replaced radioactive paints containing tritium and radium.

Niko Tii Nurmi Sipiläinen

Anu Raatikainen
Green gaze
2023

Green gaze is an installation consisting of numerous reflective and glow-in-the-dark eyes. Made of road sign film and signpost sticker material, the eyes are inspired by the tapetum lucidum layer of tissue that many nocturnal animals have in their eyes. This layer of tissue reflects the light entering the eye back through the retina, giving the eye a second chance to read the information provided by the light – and thus giving the animal the ability to see better in the dark. Thanks to this, the animals’ eyes reflect the light directed at them in the dark back to the viewer, and an animal otherwise hidden from sight can be observed in a beam of light.

Is nature looking back at us? Do trees have spirits? This surrealistically playful work invites us to reflect on how non-human organisms living around us perceive us, and to contemplate our relationship with these other consciousnesses and how we approach them.

Anu Raatikainen                               

Meriem Wakrim
From nature
2023   

From nature is a series of drawings made through combined paper and computer work during my residency period at the Saari Residence.

These images were born from walking in the forest, immersing myself in it and feeling of belonging. Here, the drawings return to where they came from.

Meriem Wakrim