Anne Roininen’s work A Tree Fellis exhibited in the urban space of Helsinki during the festival. Roininen will also make another cyanotype piece during the festival, and the audience is welcome to watch and take part in the sun-printing process. For more information on the locations and times visitpvf.fi
“I saw a slow-motion video of a tree falling down. It was hypnotic. Such size and power. It’s miraculous to think that trees grow just as much underground as they do above it. So it’s possible that I only saw one half of the falling tree as it crashed to the ground. I wanted to immortalise its size and shape. I felt like shrouding myself in silence to behold it.
More trees are being cut down now than ever before. I reflect on the meaning of a single, anonymous tree, be it in a commercial forest or deep in the wilderness. Some individuals that stand near human housing are political; they can be protected by urban activists. Some are symbols and places of remembrance. An apple tree was planted for my godson.
If a felled tree is left to decompose, it soon contains more life than it did upright. It offers a habitat for even more species. I grieve species loss as I behold one particular felled tree. I made a shroud for it.” Anne Roininen.
A Tree Fell was executed using a technique known as cyanotype printing where cloth or paper sensitised with iron salts is exposed to UV light. Roininen has made a print of an entire tree outdoors using UV light from the sun.
Visual artist Anne Roininen (b.1981) uses a variety of techniques to create concept-based spatial artworks, often with a powerful social charge. Various groups of users and questions of accessibility play an important role in her work.
