Gallery Kellokas, 2nd Sept — 18th Oct 2023
Hay, which is dried on haypoles, has been part of the traditional Finnish countryside. Farmers dried hay intended for animal feed. All family members and many village volunteers participated in haymaking. The adults raked up the hay and lifted it onto the poles. When someone shouted, ‘Stick!’, the children would run from one pole to another, putting wooden sticks into the holes of the poles. The highlight of the voluntary workday (in Finnish, ‘talkoot’) was a moment of rest in nature with coffee and a bun. In recent decades, animals have been fed fresh feed, and hay has been baled in plastic films. ‘Hay people’ are disappearing.
In the eyes of Seija Ulkuniemi, each figure of hay drying on a haypole appears as a member of the hay people. Ulkuniemi photographed those still remaining by the river Kemijoki in her home village of Muurola and in nearby Ruikka in 2015 and 2016.
Ulkuniemi’s exhibition consists of two parts. Part I, ‘Whispers’, completed in 2017, consists of Muurola’s hay figures, whom Ulkuniemi heard whispering on behalf of other disappearing things/people. The titles of the works in the exhibition reveal these silent messages. Part II, ‘Cries’, conveys hay people’s complaints about the problems and injustices of the modern world.
In her pictures, Ulkuniemi respects the tradition of hay drying: the sweat of hard work, work towards a common goal, the beauty of haystacks, and the people who still keep this tradition and hay people alive by drying hay.
Opening on Friday 1st Sept 2pm-4pm.
Welcome!
Artist’s contact info:
- E-mail:
- Artist statement: https://www.lapintaiteilijaseura.fi/artists/seija-ulkuniemi/
Featured artwork: Rainbow Humanity. Digital photograph, 2023; from the series Cries of hay people.