Maammo is the result of a environmental art project in collaboration with Suvi af Hällström. The installation was built up together with local refugee children during summer 2018 and it formed a part of the Loviisa Contemporary festival TransFolk Kucku 18-19. Materials used in the work are soil, plants (flowers, herbs), moss, poultry netting, string, burlap used for carrying coffee beans around the world, and timber.
Maammo is the mother earth bearing the whole world, crossing borders, universal, part of the earth, from earth, in-between and transgressive, approbative, enclosing everything inside. Maammo bears also a contradiction, it encloses and excludes, the contradiction of being a human and a woman. Maammo is an old word from Karelian and it means a mother.
“Mahoit ennen maammo rukka,
Mahoit kaunis kantajani,
Kultainen kulettajani,
Hopiainen hoitajani,
Tuuvitella turpehia,
Liekutella lehtipuita,
Vaalitella varpasia”
Elias Lönnrot, 1840: Kanteletar
Photos: Minerva Juolahti (left) & Shinji Kanki (right)