DREAMS

2022. Silicate paint, 11 m x 14 m.

As a child, I spent a lot of time reading books and climbing trees. The best part was climbing a tree to the very top, where the trunk is so thin that you can sway with the wind. While on a tree, one is close to the sky and perhaps also close to monkey past.

I grew up in Luumäki, where there was a wide choice of climbing trees. My personal favorite was the pine tree, where once you have climbed the initially straight, branchless and tall trunk, you can progress very well in the branches.

Luumäki is located near the eastern border, a place that has been greatly affected by various wars and the setting of the borders of empires. The municipality's public works of art are mainly war memorials. I wanted to make the work from a different starting point.

I was thinking about knowledge, reading, imagination, courage, playfulness, questioning, equality and elderly trees.

The mural featured children and young people from Luumäki. Before the painting, I held a few workshops at the middle school. In the workshops, we designed murals with the students, and painted a temporary mural on the wall of the now demolished former library. I stole some ideas for the colors of the mural from the sketches the students made in the workshops.