Voima ja herkkyys / Power and Sensitivity

Characteristic of Karlsson-Sutisna’s work is that she creates art from and for the nature. The environmental landscape work by Sanna Karlsson-Sutisna, Power and Sensitivity, was placed in Helsinki’s Central Park in 2005 as part of the art exhibition Skutsi, but then stayed permanently in place after the exhibition. Karlsson-Sutisna used storm inflicted pine tree bases and log that still stands firmly in the ground, to make her wooden sculptures. The force of nature pulled the upper part of the trees and left a natural looking, trunk. The characteristic of the log grew to have a symbolic meaning conveying a new life, like a foetus in a womb. The work consisting of the wooden trunk and its other elements portrays opposites: new and old, beginnings and ends, and also in its name Power and Sensitivity. The artist placed the ripped branches and sticks from the tree symbolically like the thorns of a cactus in the hope of protecting the work from potential threats or harmful predators. The work doesn’t belong to the City of Helsinki’s art collection, which is managed by HAM.

Karlsson-Sutisna often combines her works with Bali dances and masked performances. Similarly in the work Power and Strength, the artist danced in a classical swan ballerina tutu. But the elegance of such gestures is also complemented with tools that the artist uses to create her works, such as electric saws or indigenous chisels used in creating handworks in Bali.

The Skutsi exhibition took place 15.7.-30.9.2005 at the Laakso horse riding stadium and in the forest surroundings of the Ruskeasuo sportshall. The works of 22 artists were invloved. The theme of the exhibition was the forest, in which forest culture and its social value and Helsinki’s character as a City close to the nature was emphasised.

See also Pilgrim of Everyday Life, located in Kaivopuisto.