Books from Finland - A literary journal of writing from and about Finland.

Extracts from the novel Kuperat ja koverat (‘Convex and concave’, Otava, 2010)

Hannu Väisänen: ‘Green and yellow in March’ (work in progress, oil on canvas, 130x193cm, 2010)

I decided to go to the Museum of Fine Arts.

After paying for my entrance ticket, I climbed the wide staircase to the first floor. There all I saw were dull paintings, the same heroic seed-sowers and floor-sanders as everywhere else. Why were so many art museums nothing more than collections of frames? Always national heroes making their horses dance, mud-coloured grumblers and overblown historical scenes. There was not a single museum in which a grandfather would not be sitting on a wobbly stool peering over his broken spectacles, interrogating a young man about to set off on his travels, cheeks burning with enthusiasm, behind them the entire village, complete with ear trumpets and balls of wool. The painting’s eternal title would be ‘Interrogation’ and it would be covered with shiny varnish, so that in the end all you would be able to see would be your own face.

I climbed up to the next floor. All I really felt was a pressing need to run away. No Flemish conversation piece acquired in the Habsburg era was able to erase a growing anxiety related to love. More…

Miina – Äkkijyrkkä
Text: Jaakko Heinimäki
Photos: Juha Metso
Helsinki: Johnny Kniga Kustannus, 2009. 190 p., ill.
ISBN 978.951-0-35552-7
€41, hardback

Miina Äkkijyrkkä (born 1949; real name Riitta Loiva) is a Finnish artist known for her cattle-themed paintings and sculptures. Äkkijyrkkä is also widely known as a passionate supporter and breeder of Eastern Finncattle, an endangered breed native to Finland. Most of the accompanying texts in this book which describe her ideas and her art come from a series of discussions with author and Lutheran minister, writer Jaakko Heinimäki, recorded in the spring of 2009. Miina Äkkijyrkkä speaks openly about her art and the diverse phases of her life, her values and faith, and her clashes with the authorities and the rest of society. This book is magnificently illustrated with Juha Metso’s photographs, which were taken over a period of 15 years in Finland and abroad. More information about the artist and her works is available here.

Choosing my Religion – Uskontoja jäljittämässä
Käännökset englanniksi [English translations]: Michael Garner
Helsinki: Maahenki, 2009. 223 p., ill.
ISBN 978-952-5652-61-1
€ 38, hardback

Marita Liulia is a visual artist who specialises in interactive media art. Her works have been shown in more than 40 countries. Choosing my Religion discusses the nine major religions of the world. It contains 150 pictures and photographs, as well as texts by the artist and an article by associate professor of comparative religion Terhi Utriainen. The book, like the exhibition at Helsinki’s Kiasma museum which it accompanies, focuses on the religions and on animism. Liulia has travelled in 50 countries, studying religions and discussing them with both scholars and laymen. Her project concentrates on the possibilities of equal choice between religions and emphasises their positive aspects. The subject of the photographs in the book is the artist herself, who abandoned her Christian faith as a teenager. As a child she suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, and was unable to walk until she was 15. Liulia has portrayed herself in the traditional dress and emblems of the different faiths. In her view one of the features uniting all religions is the fact that in them women play the role of servants who pass on the faith to succeeding generations. Choosing my Religion comprises the book, the (touring) exhibition and a website.

On camelback: in the exotic part of Veijo Rönkkönen’s concrete cosmos there are animals and palm trees, side by side with the living plants of the northerly latitudes. - Photo, left: Veijo Rönkkönen; right: Veli Granö.

Extracts and photographs from Veijo Rönkkösen todellinen elämä / The real life of Veijo Rönkkönen (Maahenki, 2007. Translation: Kirsti Nurmela-Knox)

Veijo Rönkkönen (born 1944) has lived all his life on an isolated, small farm in eastern Finland, Parikkala, less than a kilometre from the Russian border, where he has quietly built a garden inhabited by nearly five hundred human figures made of concrete. Entrance is free.

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