The road trip in July took me to the city of Joutsa in Central Finland. There resides the Art Center Haihatus (could be translated as a daydream or a fanciful idea). It is an artist run art center and they hold every summer a grand exhibition. Artists can also apply for residency in Haihatus.
The exhibition area consists of three buildings and their garden, and a field area next to them. The place was filled with all kinds of works but mostly installations or statues, like this dragon like creature:
The three buildings have names, Haihatus, Utopia, and Fantasia. In Utopia was the main exhibition, or at least I felt like it. This skeleton is a small detail (it is the size of a two-year-old) of an installation that filled one room. I'm not sure if it is done with papier-mâché or is it some sort of clay.
In the attic was a grand installation by Jouko Korkeasaari. The name of the work is "Ett spök, spöket, spök" which is oddly almost Swedish. It almost says "A ghost, the ghost, ghosts", like in a dictionary but it is spelled wrong. I am pretty sure that is the point, because these creatures looming between hanging sheets are almost like ghosts, but there is something wrong in them.
I think the one above seems to be afraid of the viewer. Usually ghosts are supposed to be the scary ones.
This too seems like it is reserved. In the back of the room was a window open, so the sheets moved a bit in the breeze. Very spooky!
In the building called Fantasia we found the most bleak or grim works. The rooms were very dark, there were practically no lights and I guess I missed some information board or something because I could not find information about who made these works. Nor have I any idea what the titles of the artworks are.
This here is some sort of a mummified troll. Not real, of course. The text says "Please do not feed the trolls". Underneath was placed a typewriter, perhaps as a symbol for making up stories and fairy tales.
This here is a very old basin for bathing little children. The legs are from an old table and the basin is filled with bones. Clearly bones of a quite large creature.
No idea what is the point of this but it is cute in some very odd way. The feet have little paws so it sort of looks like a very abstract version of a pet.
I hope you found these works interesting! Next time I'll be back with another Creepy Reads Review.
I bought a copy of Robert Marbury's Taxidermy Art - A Rogue's guide to the work, the culture, and how to do it yourself on my trip to New York last spring. I think I bought it from the museum shop on MoMA. Marbury is one of the founders and the director of the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermy and an acknowledged artist.
As the title suggest, this book is non-fiction and for a person like me, who has little knowledge about how to actually make taxidermy or about its history, this was a good and informative opus. I also like the way Marbury writes, he does not became too repetitive even though the book consists of artist presentations and there are only so many ways to express certain basic information.
After the introduction to the book at hand there is also a short and compact introduction to the history of taxidermy and also to those historical persons who contributed to the development of taxidermy practices. I like that part very much, that the contemporary artists are contextualized like that.
Taxidermy Art introduces artists from all over the world, which is fantastic. Well, most of them are from the US, a few from the UK, and a couple from Europe and New Zeeland and Australia. But as the opus states the artists introduced in it are the most popular and well-known ones at the moment. It seems that taxidermy art is more popular in the English-speaking world and hence most artists are from those countries. The book presents 21 artists/artist duos.
Here are two of my favorite works and I would love to have one of these (or another of her works, her website is like a candy store for me!) myself: Still Birth (Green) and Still Birth (Blue) by Polly Morgan.
Lisa Black from New Zeeland makes gorgeous works in which animal and machine merge. I had not known about her works if I had not bought Taxidermy Art.
I can happily recommend this book. The photos are fantastic and in the end there are even instructions on how to make a taxidermy oneself. Though it is not like I am going to try them anytime soon.
Here is the second part of my road trip around Finland. I will probably divide it into two or more parts, because we visited more cities on the coast area and if I squeeze them all into this one post, nobody will have the patience to read it.
As mentioned in the previous post about eastern Finland, it differs from western Finland because they have had different influences for centuries. East is closer to Russia and west is closer to Sweden. And if you look at the map can you blame them? It is much easier to sail through a small sea than to strut through woods, especially during the time before automobiles.
I threatened to continue to tell fun facts about languages and wildlife in Finland, so here we go:
Languages
For several centuries Finland was under Swedish throne and when Sweden handed Finland over to Russia, the Russian Tzar decided Finns could continue to use Swedish as their official language in governmental things and legal things etc. Do not get me wrong, Finns spoke Finnish, especially the lower classes. The noblemen and merchants spoke Swedish, Russian, and German, mostly.
Today, if at least 3000 persons or 8% of the population in a municipality are Swedish-speaking Finns, the municipality is required to have all the street names in both Finnish and Swedish. If the municipality has majority of Swedish-speaking citizens, then Swedish may come first, like in this street sign. The name of this street is Big River's Road. Some small municipalities can be almost solely Swedish-speaking.
That traffic sign underneath the street's name means that the vehicle approaching an intersection is obligated to give way to other vehicles coming both from left and right and pedestrians too. When I was in Washington D.C. I noticed Americans do not have this sign, instead they can have STOP signs on all roads leading to an intersection. We do too have STOP signs in Finland, but they are used only in crossroads with extreme poor visibility. Otherwise that triangle is sufficient.
Almost all municipalities in Finland have both Finnish and Swedish name. Helsinki in Swedish is Helsingfors, Oulu is Uleåborg. Yet another tedious fun fact: Borg means a castle or a fortress in Swedish.
When driving around Finland there will be several times one will see a warning sign depicting an elk. Elk is the most dangerous animal in Finnish nature. Year 2010 there were 1302 collisions between a car and an elk. during 2000-2009 76 humans died in a car accident involving an elk. To compare: in Finland a bear has killed one human during the whole 20th century. The last time a wolf killed a human was in 1881. The second most dangerous animal in Finnish nature is a wasp. It has killed seven humans in 10 years.
These elk signs are common in Sweden and Norway too and at some point some German tourists had a tendency to steal elk signs on their vacation in Sweden. Maybe they thought they were exotic, but it is very dangerous to steal or sabotage a warning sign and it could lead to somebody else's death. Smartly, many tourist shops sell elk sign stuff these days!
Now to more touristy and less educational material!
Oulu has been featured a bit already, so not much more about it. We drove from east Finland to Oulu, spent there two days and then started to drive down the coastline. The first stop we made was in the city of Raahe.
Raahe has the first local museum in Finland. As you probably know, museums are bigger versions of cabinets of curiosities. They were first private collections of odd things and souvenirs people showed off to their acquaintances.
A Finnish doctor & physician Carl Robert Ehrström loved culture and decided to found a museum open to public in 1862. Before 20th century it was not easy to travel, especially if one was not from a wealthy family, so a museum that showed a bigger glimpse of the world was an amazing thing back then. I think it still is today.
Raahe was a big city when considering sailing and commerce and many of the things exhibited were from sailors, especially things they had brought from all over the world as souvenirs. Here are exotic creatures in glass jars, human skulls and a human fetus, and some apothecary's trinkets.
In another museum in Raahe one can see the world's oldest diving suit from the 18th century. And when saying oldest, I mean oldest that still exists. There were probably multiple suits like this back in the day. Its name is Wanha Herra, which means an old chap or sir. It is made out of calfskin and it looks pretty weird. In the stomach area is a hole where the human crawls in. the loose leather is then rolled tightly and attached on waist. The air to breath is pumped through the upper part and when the air is used it exits from the back.
This old diving suit has toured around the world in different expositions, the last time was 1998. After that they noticed that travelling strained the suit too much. Now Wanha Herra is in a glass cage but they have made a replica of him with the methods that were use in 18th century. The new suit is called Nuori Herra, which means a young chap or sir, and they have successfully tested if one can actually dive in it and survive. The longest diving session with Nuori Herra lasted 40 minutes.
Obviously visitors are not allowed to touch the old chap but they did have a metallic diving helmet to take the disappointment away. The instructions were clear. 1. Stand below the helmet. 2. Remove eyeglasses etc. 3. BE CAREFUL. 4. Slowly pull the helmet over your head.
I managed to bump my forehead on the helmet while putting it on.
In this museum they had also an exhibition of Raahe's local rock bands and among them was one goth rock band! I am not featuring photos of this much, because it was all in Finnish and I can't imagine you being all thrilled with a photo of an informational board in strange language. In this photo you can see there were boards and dummies dressed in selected bands' gig clothes and other things. You could sing karaoke, the best songs of the bands from Raahe.
Charon was founded 1992 and originally they played death metal but everything changes through time and so did the artistic desires of the band's members. Their goth rock is nice, melancholic and romantic, beautiful.
I love the fact that their final compilation album in 2010 was named A-sides, B-sides & Suicides. Especially because when it was released, hardly anyone was listening music from a cassette or anything with A- and B-side. And that it was the last album of Charon so the suicide part is not just a rhyme. There is something funny and poetic about it. Oh, and all members continued their musical career with other projects, mind you.
I tried to find a specimen of Charon's music with decent voice/video quality. I was not completely successful, but no matter. Here is their song Worthless from album Tearstained. Album was published 2000.
Next up: Self-portrait as a reindeer and other disturbing art!
On Thursday I and Goth Gardener visited Carroll County, Maryland. She had spring break and I had a day off, so we decided to make a goth pilgrimage to a nearby cemetery and the grave of Fred Gwynne, who is well known for his role as Herman Munster in The Munsters TV show from the sixties. It was a heartwarming satire of both the old monster movies and the everyday American family. The Family of Munsters was rather dysfunctional sometimes and Herman and Lily Munster were the first ever fictive married couple in American television to be shown in bed together. Of course they were not doing anything more upsetting than talking.
Goth Gardener drove to DC and we met at the campus of the university she teaches at. We took off and drove about an hour to reach the cemetery in Maryland. We had bought flowers in order to pay our respect for an astonishing actor (he was also in the film version of Stephen King’s Pet Cemetary!) who for some reason is buried in an unmarked grave. The Goth Gardener said she is going to try to find out why it is so, so I am not going to do any research on that. So go check her post!
It was a pleasant drive and we chatted away the whole time. My partner in crime had searched out the place of the grave and I had searched other activities for us for the afternoon. The place Mr. Gwynne is buried is a small and silent graveyard. When we got there, a murder of crows flew past, it was beautiful but it passed so quickly one could not even try to reach a camera. We just stood and watched.
The Place was surrounded by fields. And there were suspiciously many graves of people called Caple. SOme of the stones were beautifully worn, like this one.
It was lovely and sunny, so bright we could not manage without sunglasses. So we looked even more suspicious and unsettling, laying flowers to an unmarked grave.
I did not know before this trip that Fred Gwynne also wrote children’s books. I am determined to read some of them, or as many as I can get my hands on.
After the visit of Fred Gwynne we got into the car and drove to a shop that sold antiques and other oddities. Some vintage jewelry was beautiful but nothing on the selves screamed at me take me, take me! Though there were many a peculiar objects.
There were a surprising amount of things related to the Wizard of Oz, the books and the movie. There were a lot of collectibles of all kinds, from Betty Boops to Barbie dolls and traffic signs. Here I am pointing at the OZ poster with a quote "Now, you don't have to be a genius to look brilliant."
I guess we spent nearly an hour ogling all curiosities and finally decided it was time to eat. We drove to the center of the nearby town and found this lovely place called CUP Tea Bar & Cafe. The atmosphere was tranquil, the waiters were super nice, their iced tea was delicious and food was excellent. If you ever find yourselves in Carroll County, Maryland, do visit this place!
I do not normally take pictures of things I am about to eat but here is the delicious salad I had. Goth Gardener made me take a photo! And I really like to show how delicious it looks like and thus emphasize my review of CUP.
I do not know if you are familiar with the concept Women laughing alone with salad but what I am doing in the next photo is pretty borderline.
The gravy is not well seen but it is blood red raspberry sauce. Since I am a bit dorky with macabre sense of humor, I joked that if I smear the sauce on my lips, I am a vampire, if on the nostril I look like I have a cocaine addiction and if I smudge it by my ear I might have a brain tumor. Did not try it though, it was too delicious! Goth Gardener bravely laughed at me (or with me). ;)
After our late lunch we strolled to the local museum but their shop was closed. Too bad since in their internet page they mention they sell books about haunted houses in Maryland! Next door was the tourist information and boldly we entered. We found a leaflet of a Haunted House tour in the town! So, off we went and naturally we would snicker and giggle and read out loud the texts from the brochure with ominous voices.
As you can see from the photos, we are really mature individuals. In the photos we are in front of The Acension Church, where an evil Legh Master is buried. According to the brochure Legh was a cruel and awful individual and is said to be haunting the area as an evil spirit. Some of the sights had tabloid journalism kind of headlines, like Headless Jailbird. In 1844 Christmas Eve a horrid criminal Big Tom slit his throat in jail. The staff summoned a doctor Zollickhoffer, who was very into Phrenology. That is the study of bumps on the head in comparison to character and mental disorders. He got very excited of Big Tom's head and asked if he could take it with him, without the rest of the body, which at its decomposing state was of no use to Dr. Zollickhoffer. The staff of the jail agreed and today people claim to have seen a headless figure roaming around in the vicinity of the old jail. Could that be Big Tom they've seen?? as they asked in the leaflet.
On our escapade in Carroll County we saw an advertisement of “Peep Show”in the local Art Center. Now, I did not know Americans call these little marzipan Easter candy as Peeps so I assumed it was some sort of an Easter striptease show and I was amused, until Goth Gardener revealed the true meaning. Here is her post straightening it all! ;) After that we both laughed at my misapprehension! It was not even on the day we were there and according to a brochure there were Disney character statues made out of Peeps. I guess I was a little disappointed. :D
We spend another day together on this week too, so next week I'll be posting about the things we did in DC on the Spring Equinox!
The next episode of a not-so-fictional goth tourist's (also known as me) escapades in Budapest is about what funny or weird things I bought there.
As I mentioned in a previous post, a little white rabbit led my travel group of two into a big flea market on Saturday. The flea market is held every weekend (at least during warmer months) in the city's park Városliget. According to all tourist guides one is sure to make great finds in that flea market but I was rather disappointed. There were some sellers with nice old things but nothing really weird or creepy that would fit a goth's taste. There was also many people selling their clothes and unopened everyday products like toothpaste in big bulks.
I still managed to find something to buy. Two dead old watches and some small metallic plate. I intend to do some DIY and make a steampunk inspired brooch or a hair accessory or something.
Me and my companion also wondered around a regular shopping center and I found some casual and smart shoes for this fall. Though they are fake suede, so they are not good if there is any rain. From another shoe shop I found these gorgeous green legwarmers and stockings. The stockings were on sale and 990 FT is about 3 euro.
A shop I really adored in Budapest was Szputnyik Shop on Dohány utca 20, in the centrum area. They had interesting second hand clothes, accessorizes, hats and other stuff and a huge amount of clothes, jewelry and what not by local designers.
I had my eye on several really cool print tops but alas I am not the right shape for them! They look good on more flat people and with my curves there was no chance. My companion bought one I wanted to buy too. It did not look half as good on me as in this pic.
If you are interested of design and local artists, I must recommend Magma, a Hungarian design and contemporary art gallery in the centrum, pretty close to the river, on the side of Pest. I bought this cute little fox from there!
Unfortunately this print is on a slightly shimmering paper so trying to take a good photo of it was quite frustrating. Here is a link to the artists webpage. I cant remember how much I payed for my little fox but it was not too expensive. I also bought three postcards from the museum shop of Ludwig Museum, of which I am going to write the next post, since it was a great art museum. Here are the three works of art on postcards:
I shall tell more about them in the next post, why ruin the content of it now! Finally the last three things I bought from another design shop. These are more goth-y too.
A skull of coarse. This is the perfect size and if I am any judge, it probably belonged to an European roe deer. It was the first thing I saw in the design shop. The place is Szimpla Design Shop, their webpage is under construct but here is their facebook page.
When I saw the second object that interested me the conversation between me and the salesperson was this:
me: That's pretty. What is it and how much is it? salesperson: To be honest, I do not know what it is but it costs 10 euros.
A short silence. me: I'll take it.
So, if any of you know what that thing is on the right, please tell me! I do know that the thing on the left is a ballpoint pen, I put it there to show you how big that other thing is. Me and my entourage of one soul pondered this for a while. We wondered if it might be a part of a door handle. But where could one grab it? We saw those metallic middle parts by themselves of the flea market I mentioned earlier.
The last thing I bought and am going to show you is this.
This too costed only ten euros. It is made of porcelain and it is exactly the size you might think it is.
It is a vase for flowers, though I am not going to put real live flowers in it. The shape might be cool but it is inconvenient if one tries to actually clean it well from inside. I predict it would soon start to smell, if there was water and organic things like parts of plants in it. I shall buy a black fake flower to make this perfect.
This porcelain gun has so far been the most fun thing I bought. Since it is of such delicate material, of coarse I had to take it back to Finland in my hand luggage! I must say it was rather fun at the security check before we could go to the gate area. No surprise, my bag was taken for a more thorough inspection than mere translumination. The inspecting person asked me to open the bag and started to go through it. To make things speedier I said something like "What you are probably looking for is in that small pocket on the lid part of the luggage. I mean, if you are looking for a gun shaped object, there is a designer vase that fits that description". I was as nice as it was possible and explained how I really could not have put a delicate object like that in to the cargo bin. In the end the inspector said it was actually rather cool a gun and let me proceed to the gates.
I hope these recommendations of shops have been helpful if somebody is planning to visit Budapest and that this post has been at least entertaining! Next time, some culture tips, an art museum and some museums of specific parts of history.
It has been disgustingly long time since I have posted. The fault is that I have had the last exams and essays to return (well, who hasn't in the spring?) I have also been on a holiday in Paris and I have moved to a different city, at least for the summer! So you can imagine that it has been a very busy month!
Here are some photos (taken with a phone so I apologize the poor quality!) from the Catacombs of Paris and a few pics of the National Opera of Paris, where I went to see a ballet Orphée et Eurydice at the Palais Garnier. I went there an hour before the start of the ballet because then the tickets are cheap. Of coarse the tickets that are available at that hour are the crappiest places, where you can see only 50% of the stage IF you are LUCKY. It was still worth the 10 euro fee, the music and the singers were awesome, the whole set design and costumes were simple and modern and the dance was amazing (at least the parts that I saw ;) ).
If you can't remember at the moment, the story of Orpheus and Eurydice is a tragedy in which the two main characters fall in love but the lady dies. Orpheus travels to hell to retrieve his love. He has the ability to play music so beautifully that the ruler of Hell promises that Orpheus may take his love but Eurydice must walk behind him and Orpheus is not allowed to look back to make sure she really is following. Otherwise she will be damned to hell for eternity. Well, Orpheus is unable to resist the need of a little peek and loses Eurydice for all eternity. He wonders the land in grief and in the end a gang of Maenads (female followers of Dionysus, basically ravers of the Antiquity) bump into Orpheus and the ladies tear him into pieces.
When I visited all those art museums in Paris, I got this feeling that the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice is or was really important to the French because there were about hundred paintings of this legend in the Louvre alone. Mostly from the 18th and 19th centuries but I am not sure if I remember correctly.
The catacombs were worth the waiting. You have to wait in line at least one hour to get there but the catacombs are extremely fascinating!
'Stop! Here lies the empire of death'
I did not take selfies during my holiday except this one because two American tourists provoked me too to take 'a selfie with a dead person!' :D What a lovely macabre sense of humor they had!
Next time something about art: Grotesque paintings of horses!
