As a part of Forum Box’ new exhibition policy, we have decided to display art also on the outside of the gallery. From now on, our goal is to annually display art on the gallery’s facade. That way art can reach out to people around the clock. The second artwork on our facade is Pauliina Turakka Purhonen’s Herbarium 2020, Skogstorp, Veckjärvi (2020).

Herbarium 2020, Skogstorp, Veckjärvi on Forum Box facade 16.10.2020 – 17.1.2021

Had another kind of herbarium in mind – I wanted to walk from Viiskulma to Forum Box and document the blooming of flowers on the roadside and the quays. Despite the barrenness, there is a lot of growth. Walked this route for years to my old workspace in Jätkäsaari. The flowers gave me joy from early spring to late autumn: the rosebay willowherb would always return after being cut down.

Corona pulled me to quarantine. Spent the spring and the summer in Veckjärvi’s Skogstorp, Porvoo. The garden bloomed lusciously from late March onwards. The bellflowers and roses are still blooming. I have tried my best to keep up with the changes.

Flowers turn towards the Sun and close when it gets cloudy. The clouds sail in the wind that brushes through the grass and the landscape. Everything changes in a moment and withers. Some minutes are given, and one tries to concentrate. Thoughts race with the wind. The family acquires attention.

Buildings provide welcome counterweight: solid structures in the variable. But the light plays tricks, the weather changes, I paint compromises. Everybody is busy this year, the garden will have to manage on its own. Through the course of the summer, the buildings sink deeper into the greenery. If we abandoned the garden for a few years, the forest would swallow it up.

I have painted sporadically over the past few years, and it shows. Stiff in the beginning, and overly enthusiastic. The Sunday painter rushes, loses the grip, and runs about themselves. Sometimes there is a calm, and she gets a hasty glimpse of what painting is at its best.

Here is my summer.

Svenska Kulturfonden has supported my work in this project.