Together with Kaisu Paavilainen
Video Installation: Textile, wooden chairs, sound, video projection.
2006
The names of the closest people written on handtowels made by Finnish and Russian
children. The video shows a view from the Dvina Carelian graveyard. A white ribbon
hanged on the cross is swinging in the wind. It means that someone is remembering a
dead person. One can listen to how the corp is prepared for the burial as told by Maikki
from Vuokkiniemi.
Maikki ´s story:
When a person dies
he is prepred for the coffin.
First his body is washed.
Then he is dressed in clothes that are similar to
those he wore when he was still alive, except they
ought to be lighter colour and fabric for the
clothes should not be woolen but of fine uality.
Also the head scarf should not be made of wool.
Shoes are then placed on the feet of the deceased
and the shoes should have been in use. New shoes
can be used if there is nothing else and they can
be pierced with knife point for small holes to make
them appera worn.
The handtowel is brought to the grave not on the
day the burial but next morning when people
go to the cenetery. In the past people brought a
pair of cups to the grave together with the towel.
At the present people pour a drink of vodka on the grave.
The towel brought to the grave is a kind of handtowel
in a sense that it is for drying oneself after washing
and when it gets dirty people visiting the grave on Whitsun,
replace them with new ones.
If the grave is not visited by anyone then the old towels keep
hanging there.
I had so much of the fabric for the towels and all of it
I have taken to the cemetery.
Anne Siirtola 