writings and texts
Actually It's not important whether I can be called a landscape
architect, environmental designer or even a sculptor for that matter. My
work overlaps many fields. I do feel that, as an artist, my works should
go beyond just the designing itself. For artists there are no boudaries -
only for art historians.
Adding one's sculpture to a landscape
can be very exiting (see Henry Moore). Creating a landscape around a
sculpture needs more explaining: this can be a dangerous undertaking
because it is an unnatural act to have a sculpture first and then pretend
surroundings for it. You would be trying to marry two totally different
entities.
One of my first projects started out by the architect asking me
to make a sculpture for a garden with a pond which he had sketched (DSW
project - my first environmental sculpture project, a
form of urban land art). But, I was free to design the pond myself - he
added that I would even be free to design the whole garden. I couldn't put
it in words then, but I did understand that it would not work - to design
a sculpture and then a garden to complement it. So I decided to make an
environment in which I could imagine myself being there - using elements
from my surroundings which had individual qualities of their own:
traditional pruned linden trees, traditional natural stone curbstones, mowed grass
planes, moving water, an impenetrable lava stone field and elements which
I created myself - combining them into a kind of environmental assemblage
of items which melted together into a visual theatrical spectacle with a
contemplative Zen garden-like appeal. Maybe there are better ways to
formulate this, but this is what came out of my keyboard now. I remember
showing my initial sketch to
Henry Moore in Italy the summer of 1970. He
told me that he appreciated the fact that I had incorporated elements
which I shaped myself into this environment.
At that time I had already
started to doubt whether this was actually an indispensable thing. Why
shouldn't one be able to create a totally new visual and spatial
experience by only using existing material and objects?
In 1971 I started
another environmental/landscape project into which I introduced a bronze
sculptural element of my own - the Walburg project. After this the only
landscape-like project into which I introduced a sculptural element was
the Suvanto Puisto park-project. I wonder if Henry Moore's words had that
great an impact on me. I suppose I sometimes feel the necessity of having
a dominant central object, which cannot be an existing recognizable object
from our daily environment with which we are already acquainted. It would
have too much implied meaning of itself (although I do use them as
secondary elements of an environment just because of this inherent
symbolism). Still a sculptural object made by my own hand should not have to tell
more than it actually is either - it should remain very elementary and reflect its
presence on its surroundings.
I will have to think about this a lot more, but not too much - for when I
find the solution, I may not have the satisfaction I need anymore. And
again - I remember Henry Moore telling me that C. G. Jung wrote
The Archetypal world of Henry Moore; but he
did not actually want to read it and find out why he was doing what he
did.
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