Adrift

After having watched the artists at work on the huge mural in yesterday's post, I walked on along the river, and after a while arrived at this scene, with some boat sculptures adrift on the water.

 

The brochure about the art biennial that I found online suggests the following interpretation:

The boats are drifting with the wind. Are they on
a peaceful trip, enjoying the calm, or have they
lost hope of reaching their destination? People
have traversed the waters throughout the ages.
Sometimes to escape, sometimes out of curiosity
and an urge to see new things, and sometimes
to hurt and exploit the strangers they encounter
on the other side. We think we know where we
are going, and that this is something we can and
should control. But there are circumstances and
powers that we cannot rule – and then, we are
like the figures drifting serenely in these boats.

The Wind is Turning Towards the East was origi-
nally created in 2013, and in light of the thousands
of refugees who arrived only a year or so later,
empty-handed and desperate after drifting
on a stormy Mediterranean without finding a
welcoming port, this work is chillingly prophetic.
It also suggests a more symbolic picture of our
ignorance of our own destiny. Perhaps this is
most aptly put by the poet Harry Martinson in his
masterpiece Aniara from 1956:
“O, would that we could turn back to our base
now that we realise what our space-ship is:
a little bubble in the glass of Godhead.”

Heli Ryhänen (b. 1971) lives and works in Tampere,
Finland. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts,
Helsinki and the Kankaanpää School of Art in Fin-
land.