Metsänpeitto

The installation Metsänpeitto focuses on the mythological powers of the forest, the fortress of the plant kingdom. In Finnish nature worship, metsänpeitto (lit. forest's cover/blanket) meant the disappearance of people and cattle into the forest's otherness: one did not get lost in the forest but drifted out of sight of this reality. This was counteracted, for example, by hiding salt in hollow bird feathers or, after Christianity had taken over the worldview of the Finns, by building barns in the same direction as the church. One way to escape metsänpeitto was to invoke the power of death or to tie the tops of three young trees together.