The garden next to Helsinki prison is the site I chose for
my work. Well, this garden used to be part of the prison grounds, the prisoners
used to grown fruit and veg here, the work used to be considered beneficial to
their well being. Then recently, it wasn’t considered good anymore, so the site
was left abandoned, until a local urban gardening organization came along and created several allotments on site.
My work was centred around an apple tree, tucked away
by the former gate of the prison. Immediately I was compelled by the parallel
of the apples rotting on the ground and the people wasting their time away in
the prison. In attempt to highlight this process, I brought a pack of bleached A4
office paper, normally used for documents, the likes of birth certs and
life-sentences.
I carefully placed the gone off apples on the blank pages,
one on each own sheet. I didn’t pick every single one, just a few, as I was getting
a bit nervous because of a gentleman sitting down on the bench nearby and
staring at me. He wouldn't leave until I had picked all the sheets up.
I intended to question waste and value, the juxtaposition of
human life and nature, and the relationship between the different offspring of
the tree – the apples and paper.
Through this semi-experimental and experiential work I was
curious to see what imprint an apple would leave on the white sheet. The weight of the apples held down the sheets, and the shadows
composed shapes.
The
next day I brought the group of fellow students with me to the site, wishing for
them to experience the work in a participatory way. With me I had a second hand
book, Охрана окружающей среды, environmental
protection in English (Google translate says it’s ympäristönsuojelu in Finnish, I love the way it’s one word rather than
two or three). I invited everyone to tear the pages out of the book and, again,
place them under the fallen apples, see how many wasted apples we can find.
Team work was much more fruitful than my own attempt, and, a sheet per rotting apple from the tree, we
used up the whole book of 559 pages.
Many thanks to Joel, Aleksi and Kristina for photos.
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