I sailed with my family members from Finland to Latvia via Gotland on our old wooden boat. We wanted to follow old sea routes that also have been used for trade between Gotland and Livonia since the 11th century. One of my aims in Aizpute was to work on my drawings from my impressions from the sailing. Another was to study the old Liv villages on the northern shore of the Kurzeme peninsula.
In Aizpute,
I worked with my drawings. Also many other things happened! I had the
opportunity to learn about the history of the Jews of Aizpute thanks to the
English language publication published by SERDE. And by chance, I got to join
the research trip to look for possible mass graves outside the village. I was
impressed with what I read and saw. In the forest, I imagined how the trees
know what happened at that time in 1941. The earth also knows - we learned that
elevated phosphorus levels in soil can reveal human remains. But information
and memories told by people themselves are always a little uncertain. The
installation I made is based on these moods. I used the bark of a tree and soil
from the forest by the supposed mass grave, and old vacuum cleaner bags.
I just couldn't
resist the temptation to play with the clothesline, because in Finland the
laundry is hung in a different way. I did different tests, and the funniest was
the one where I wrote a Finnish nursery rhyme with a certain letter missing.
Then, by moving the clothesline, that letter slowly went to each missing point
in the poem on the line. We made some videos of this “letter magic”.
